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Rand Paul Files Suit Against Obama Over NSA's Collection of Metadata
RoccamOccam writes Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is filing a class action lawsuit against President Obama and other members of his administration over the National Security Agency's collection of phone metadata, a practice he believes violates the Fourth Amendment. In a YouTube video released Tuesday, Paul compared the government surveillance to the warrantless searches practiced by the British military prior to American independence."
So few role models left in the world. This man is truly my hero for standing up to the machine.
Rand Paul has open disdain for other amendments of the constitution. He is using the fourth amendment to bring more attention to his presidential aspirations but when his corporate masters tell him later that the fourth amendment gets in the way of profit he will be in a hurry to backpedal.
I don't know, I think YouTube makes sense. After all, we just learned that it's the number one website in the world. A smart followup would be to edit Wikipedia entries (#2), and every politician has a staff to do that.
The courts will just dismiss this case for "lack of standing" as they did his father's lawsuit against Obama for violating the War Powers Act regarding Libya.
The Constitution provides a remedy for the Executive Branch violating laws, and it's not having the Legislative Branch go to the Judicial Branch. Congress should pass a veto-proof law clarifying its intention that universal wiretapping is against the law, and then if the Executive Branch persists, then start impeachment proceedings, where members of Congress act as judge and jury. Rand Paul's lawsuit is nothing but grandstanding -- similar to the conservative all-talk-no-results Republicans have been feeding their constituents for the past half-century, but this time it's libertarian all-talk-no-results. And unconstitutional to boot.
(Congress could conceivably start impeachment proceedings now without first passing clarifying legislation, but impeachment is a card that realistically can be played only once every couple of decades, so you want to make sure. If you don't have the votes for legislation, you sure aren't going to have them for impeachment. (You can also substitute "ethics and political will" for "votes".))
Come on, this is 2014. Youtube is a legitimate way to make announcements. The two official State of the Union videos have about a million Youtube views put together. More people watched Bill Nye's evolution/creationism debate on Youtube than live on television. Sure, there's lots of crap on Youtube, but there is plenty of crap on cable TV as well. Is NBC a bad source of news just because Jerry Springer is distributed by NBCUniversal? Is CBS a bad source of news because it broadcasts Survivor? Same thing applies to the internet. One one end, you have nytimes.com and politico.com and on the other end you have timecube.com. The fact that Timecube exists doesn't automatically discount everything else on the internet.
Your post is confusing we.
Congress signed off on it because that's how it's done. Obama didn't 'get them' to do it. It's not like he held a gun to their heads.
Same with Bush administration.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The fact that Timecube exists doesn't automatically discount everything else on the internet.
You obviously haven't actually spent much time reading Timecube. After Timecube, everything else on the internet can easily be discounted.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Obama has allowed much of Bush-Cheney's Intelligence policy/personnel to remain in place, but it was implemented by Bush & Cheney.
When a United States Senator feels that he cannot restrain the Executive Branch except by enlisting the aid of a judge, we have lost the Republic.
Mr. Paul, you are a UNITED STATES SENATOR. You have all the power you need to put a stop to anything government does that you don't like. Write legislation. Get it passed. If the president vetoes, OVERRIDE IT. Congress was given more power than any other branch for a reason. Use it.
While you're at it, how about legislation that educates Congress on their role and power in the federal government? Given nonsense like this, it seems such legislation would be pertinent.
Also while you're at it, repeal the 17th amendment. The Senate is supposed to be a check against both the Executive Branch AND the House. Restore the Constitution to its original purpose.
CBS is an integral part of the new US Department of Propaganda. You will never hear/see ANYthing on any of the official government "mouthpieces" that the government does not want you to hear/see. Places like Youtube are, for the moment, the one of the few places to still get "non-government-approved" news/information.. In the case of Rand Paul, he is one of the VERY few members of Congress who seem to actually have the people's best interests at heart. I'm thankful we have him on our side.. Obama-bots, feel free to mod me down... You *know* you want to...
I'm not a Republican, nor a Democrat, I'M AN AMERICAN!! AND I'M PISSED!!!!
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Agreed.
While I certainly don't agree with all of Rand Paul's ideas, I applaud him for actually HAVING ideas in the first place. Far too many Congress-critters only care about keeping the status quo (and using the status quo to keep their 'hookers and blow' funds fully stocked.)
This signature is false.
He thinks that Obama started the surveillance. Not that it absolves anyone, Obama's fully guilty of continuing Bush's crimes.
I think the point was that that the left appears to be anxious to turn America into a prison state, as long as it's their guy running the prison.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Bear in mind, Obama cannot run for a 3rd term. Also bear in mind that the NSA spying began under a Republican (GW Bush) administration which fast-tracked the Patriot act through and created numerous other unpleasant changes in the name of fighting terrorism.
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying...
Furthermore, describe the mechanism whereby a vote is wasted. When you vote democrat or republican, does your vote somehow become more than 1 vote? How is its value increased? You are making exactly the same difference either way. A difference of one vote.
Although honestly, if you're just voting for the same 2 parties that have fucked us over our whole lives, it's really making a negligible difference.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
In the case of Rand Paul, he is one of the VERY few members of Congress who seem to actually have the people's best interests at heart.
Really? In what way is the elimination of representation of the people in the senate, or decrease of upper income taxation at the expense of the lower income brackets, an example of having "the people's best interests at heart"?
Ever hear of the House of Representatives? They provide the proportional representation. Ever hear of a Federalism? That's where the states come in, each represents a more or less regional population, and is more responsive to the region as a whole (at least before the 17th amendment). Ever hear of a republic? That's the form of government we have. What you propose is a direct democracy at a national scale, which is terrible for minority rights and individual liberty. Go read Payne and Jefferson to see why your view is antithetical to the foundation and essence of the USA.
Randall Paul was not named after Ayn Rand (wikipedia). Ayn Rand lived in the United States from age 21 (1926) onwards. Rand's criticisms of democracy pretty much follow the tradition of America's founders, and her criticisms of American government were based on opposition to collectivist policies.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Ayn Rand advocated rational self interest, and a society which would celebrate and foster it. Is rational self interest the same as selfishness? Well I think that's a semantic issue. In any case Ayn Rand did not advocate the kind of selfishness that most people imagine. If you take Atlas Shrugged for instance, there were lots of people in her books that a typical person might call selfish that were actually villains, and many of the actions of the protagonists one might deem generous if they weren't constantly proclaiming the selfish reasons for their actions.
Another example is in John Galt's crazy long speech, he says something like how even giving to charity can be in one's rational self interest, if one derives pleasure or a sense of purpose from helping people, as opposed to being forced to give to charity (e.g. via coercion form the state). Some people might object to this idea by saying it's not true altruism if the altruistic person is somehow benefiting, but if this is the case, then I don't think true altruism actually exists.
There are definitely some areas of Ayn Rand's philosophy that probably deserve some criticism, including her ideas of rational self interest, but I think many people tend to oversimplify her position when they reduce it to "She advocates selfishness".
You've got the right concept (separation of POWERS), but the wrong adversaries (church and state). The church has no civil power at all. The separation of it from the state is to protect the church from being corrupted by the state.
The adversaries the founders had in mind were the co-equal branches of government: executive, legislative, and the court. Each of these branches does have significant power.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday