Court Ruling Threatens Liberty, Empowers Leftie Totalitarian Abuse of Citizens.

[ashurbanipal]

It is also interesting that the courts are sooooo picky about observing that concept--a concept that was never written into any law--but some are so quick to deviate from the actual law that they don't like.

I'm curious: have you ever done any legal research? I mean, looking at some issue and then using Westlaw to chase down the history of all the decisions that have led to it, reading all the case files, going down to the courthouse to look through old briefs, etc?

Few people (aside from attorneys and judges) have. I suspect if you do that, and read the cases that appear before judges and appelate panels, and the reasoning that comes out of them, you might find your view toned down a bit. Of course, maybe I'm making too many assumptions-perhaps you've already done something like that.

 

[Henrin]

I really hate the exception of privacy bull****. Just because I shouldn't expect privacy doesn't mean the government should have permission to watch.

 

[AlbqOwl]

I'm curious: have you ever done any legal research? I mean, looking at some issue and then using Westlaw to chase down the history of all the decisions that have led to it, reading all the case files, going down to the courthouse to look through old briefs, etc?

Few people (aside from attorneys and judges) have. I suspect if you do that, and read the cases that appear before judges and appelate panels, and the reasoning that comes out of them, you might find your view toned down a bit. Of course, maybe I'm making too many assumptions-perhaps you've already done something like that.

I have had a few law classes and have worked in a law office doing legal research among other things. I have been in court many times as advocate for a client during legal proceedings. I am well acquainted with Findlaw yes. And I have many friends who are lawyers or trained in the law in other respects. And I am pretty sure that most, if not all, would share my opinion in that one respect. I don't see any reason to tone down what I believe to be true.

I have had some serious discussions with law professors about why precedent is considered such gospel in the legal profession rather than interpretation of the actual law that exists. Invariably, off the record, the answer is a) expectations of the legal profession and b) the cowardice or cover their ass syndrome, c) it is just easier than bucking the system.

 

[matchlight]

I read through the Fourth Circuit's en banc decision in this case, U.S. v. Graham, and I think it's a good call. In reaching its decision that the law at issue was not unconstitutional, the court relied on a well-established line of Supreme Court decisions on government use of information voluntarily given to third parties. In particular, the court relied on Smith v. Maryland, a 1979 case involving government use of information acquired in the normal course of business by a telephone company's pen register. The court distinguished three other Supreme Court decisons--Kyllo v. U.S., U.S. v. Karo, and U.S. v. Jones, in which the government's acquisition of information without a warrant was held to violate the Fourth Amendment.

In particular, the Fourth Circuit in Graham distinguished between the direct, precise surveillance in those cases--in Kyllo, the use of thermal imagining machinery to detect activity inside a building on a residential property; in Karo, a beeper inserted into a can of ether and placed inside a house; and in Jones, a tracking device attached to a vehicle--with the indirect method used here. It noted that the information obtained about calls using a certain cell phone tower only located the caller within a four-square-mile area, and, more importantly, that a person who contracts for a phone company's services has no reasonable expectation that the company will keep private the information it collects about the use of his phone, in the course of its normal business practice of monitoring the activity of its cell towers. The appeals court likened the phone company's recording of its cell tower activity in Graham to the phone company's normal business practice of using a pen register to record telephone dialing in Smith.

The Fourth Circuit remarked in Graham that the Supreme Court might one day change its third-party doctrine in Fourth Amendment search cases, or that Congress might act to require a warrant to obtain this type of cell tower information, but that until such time, it had to base its judgment on the law as it now stands.

 

[Deuce]

People need to understand that there's a difference between government asking for data and government ordering release of data.

The second one requires a warrant or subpoena. The first doesn't.

 

[ashurbanipal]

I have had a few law classes and have worked in a law office doing legal research among other things. I have been in court many times as advocate for a client during legal proceedings. I am well acquainted with Findlaw yes. And I have many friends who are lawyers or trained in the law in other respects. And I am pretty sure that most, if not all, would share my opinion in that one respect. I don't see any reason to tone down what I believe to be true.

I have had some serious discussions with law professors about why precedent is considered such gospel in the legal profession rather than interpretation of the actual law that exists. Invariably, off the record, the answer is a) expectations of the legal profession and b) the cowardice or cover their ass syndrome, c) it is just easier than bucking the system.

Excellent! Then we can take this conversation up a notch or two. First, I think some of what you're on about comes from the fact that courts will seldom do any research outside of what attorneys present in their briefs. When an attorney is simply bad at his job, he may miss something in law that basically hands the case to the other side, and judges won't necessarily even realize it. While I do ultimately think we should abandon Stare Decisis in the sense that precedent should not be binding, I also think we should recognize what it will mean to abandon the principle altogether.

The origins of the principle, as I understand them, are to be found in English Common Law, which generally held precedent to be a guide to present decisions when the same principle is involved. The reason for this seems to have been that the legal profession was generally worried that decisions would too often boil down to sentiment. It had to be acknowledge (and I think it still has to be acknowledged) that no legislature, and no legislation, can adequately cover all the possible vicissitudes of reality. So perhaps this counts as "expectations of the legal profession," but it seems there is a real worry behind the principle. Without Stare Decisis, there can be no guide to telling how a court will decide a case where its questionable which statutes apply.

In jurisdictions that have existed without Stare Decisis, there have often been some truly odd rulings that make little sense unless you figure in some corruption somewhere--another factor that the principle is meant to guard against. It's not as easy for a judge to accept a bribe, rule against precedent, and then claim he was just following the law when his ruling is reviewed when Stare Decisis is operative.

Now, again, I think all these can be overcome. But we'd have to change a lot of other stuff before we could safely abandon the principle.

In my experience, at least in cases I've looked at, judges/justices only overturn precedent when statutes have been updated, or (rarely) when a case is so obviously one-sided in terms of what justice would intuitively demand that precedent cannot be a guide to administering justice in that case.

 

[natsb]

For limited purposes, not just for ****s and giggles. Read what they say. They can't give the data to the government unless the government complies with the US Constitution. Even the passages that natsb quoted said as much.

Wow, selective reading at its worse. Here is what I posted

such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us

Now for a little grammar lesson. Notice the comma? It is the little mark that looks like this: " , " That does not mean stop reading and ignore everything after it. It means that item you just read is part of a list and there is more to come. Do you suppose a "judicial proceeding" is covered by the very ruling in this thread? How about "or other legal process"; what is that limited to? Hint: "or other" is the same thing as "any".

 

[Beaudreaux]

Wow, selective reading at its worse. Here is what I posted


Now for a little grammar lesson. Notice the comma? It is the little mark that looks like this: " , " That does not mean stop reading and ignore everything after it. It means that item you just read is part of a list and there is more to come. Do you suppose a "judicial proceeding" is covered by the very ruling in this thread? How about "or other legal process"; what is that limited to? Hint: "or other" is the same thing as "any".

Where do you think the terminology:

such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us

comes from? It comes from the Constitution. Like I said in my post you took exception to, it's called Due Process. "..., or other legal process served on us" means the same thing as "any???" You have to be kidding.

 

[natsb]

Where do you think the terminology: comes from? It comes from the Constitution. Like I said in my post you took exception to, it's called Due Process. "..., or other legal process served on us" means the same thing as "any???" You have to be kidding.

Your having a hard time keeping up. Sorry, I may be going too fast for you. I'll try to lower my conversation level. The text I posted cannot be found in the Constitution because it does not come from the Constitution. It came from Yelp's terms and conditions; I included the link for your convenience. If you have trouble going back to find it, I will be more than happy to relink it.

I am hoping not to turn this into a grammar class, but yes, "any" and "or other" has the same meaning in the context of the terms and conditions we are talking about. No kidding.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Your having a hard time keeping up. Sorry, I may be going too fast for you. I'll try to lower my conversation level. The text I posted cannot be found in the Constitution because it does not come from the Constitution. It came from Yelp's terms and conditions; I included the link for your convenience. If you have trouble going back to find it, I will be more than happy to relink it.

I am hoping not to turn this into a grammar class, but yes, "any" and "or other" has the same meaning in the context of the terms and conditions we are talking about. No kidding.

I will try to type slower for you - D u e P r o c e s s .

 

[natsb]

I will try to type slower for you - D u e P r o c e s s .

I honestly have faith that you will understand this, so I am willing to give it one more try. Due process is not required if you volunteer the information.

Okay, try to follow along...

Picture a lot of people on a sidewalk in front of a Starbucks. You, wearing a bright blue shirt, stop in front of the Starbucks and shout out:" I AM GOING INTO THE STARBUCKS". Six people gave you a glance when they heard you yell out this information.

A few seconds later, a cop shows up in the same place. He ask if anyone saw a man in a bright blue shirt go by. At that point, the six people point at the Starbucks, and say "He went in there".

See what happened??? The cop did not need due process, a warrant, or a subpoena. You volunteered the information to the six people, for the sake of this tread, they are the third parties. And also for the sake of this thread, it was the phone that shouted out your location.

Again, this is not a Constitutional issue. It is a personal choice issue. If you don't want people to know where you are, don't tell them. The power to turn off the location services is all yours.

 

[Beaudreaux]

I honestly have faith that you will understand this, so I am willing to give it one more try. Due process is not required if you volunteer the information.

Okay, try to follow along...

Picture a lot of people on a sidewalk in front of a Starbucks. You, wearing a bright blue shirt, stop in front of the Starbucks and shout out:" I AM GOING INTO THE STARBUCKS". Six people gave you a glance when they heard you yell out this information.

A few seconds later, a cop shows up in the same place. He ask if anyone saw a man in a bright blue shirt go by. At that point, the six people point at the Starbucks, and say "He went in there".

See what happened??? The cop did not need due process, a warrant, or a subpoena. You volunteered the information to the six people, for the sake of this tread, they are the third parties. And also for the sake of this thread, it was the phone that shouted out your location.

Again, this is not a Constitutional issue. It is a personal choice issue. If you don't want people to know where you are, don't tell them. The power to turn off the location services is all yours.

Maybe you should read the Constitution, specifically the 5th and 14th Amendment, and ask others what the definition of Due Process actually is and what it precludes the government from doing without it. Beyond that, I have nothing further to say since you feel it more important to be sarcastic and give irrelevant and illogical examples that only prove your lack of understanding of the term, Due Process.:doh Later...:2wave:

 

[natsb]

Maybe you should read the Constitution, specifically the 5th and 14th Amendment, and ask others what the definition of Due Process actually is and what it precludes the government from doing without it. Beyond that, I have nothing further to say since you feel it more important to be sarcastic and give irrelevant and illogical examples that only prove your lack of understanding of the term, Due Process.:doh Later...:2wave:

Farewell then. Till we meet again, I wish you well.

Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk

 

[NoLeftNoRight]

And the Republicans are the campions of civil liberties? You might wanna take a look at the votes of those being against measures such as the patriot act.. See post #20

To think that everyone who labels themselves a "Republican" is really that, is naive.
I would venture a guess that many who call themselves "Republican" today are not at all what true conservatives would call Republican.

We even have one who calls himself a Republican (but is he?) clinching the nomination for President.

 

[TheDemSocialist]

To think that everyone who labels themselves a "Republican" is really that, is naive.
I would venture a guess that many who call themselves "Republican" today are not at all what true conservatives would call Republican.

We even have one who calls himself a Republican (but is he?) clinching the nomination for President.

Ahhh yes. The RINO argument :roll: So many RINO's that their "left" right?