The Obama Administration is fighting hard against an effort by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue of NSA surveillance of Americans’ telephone calls, insisting the court lacks jurisdiction and the issue should be left to lower courts.
EPIC has sought (PDF) a Supreme Court answer on whether the FISA courts were exceeding their authority by ordering telephone companies like Verizon to disclose information on every single phone call made by every single customer they have.
Under US law, the Supreme Court can only issue such an extraordinary writ if the aggrieved have no other avenue available, and EPIC argues that since the Justice Department has said the lower courts don’t have jurisdiction, the Supreme Court must.
The Obama Administration seems to be trying to have its cake and eat it too here, arguing that the Supreme Court also lacks jurisdiction, and that the issue should simply be allowed to “percolate” in lower courts for the time being.
Yet it clearly opposes letting those lower courts weigh in either, so the “lacks jurisdiction” argument in this case seems simply to be an effort to stall for time. Moreover, the argument that EPIC can’t prove its members were targeted by the FISA order because the FISA court limits access to the data collected seems to be made in extremely bad faith, since it has already been established that the NSA is collecting data on literally everybody with a telephone.
Funny, when Obama was a constitutional law professor, he didn't teach that the Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction.
Next time they are going to say, is about time to close the Supreme Court, reason, lack of jurisdiction.
Obama did’nt say they lack jurisdiction when they change the wording on the health care law to TAX.
This'll be interesting. On the one hand, the Executive declaring the Supremes don't have jurisdiction is more like a sharp stick in the eye of the Nine. Conversely, the types of invasive surveillance M&P that Executive is attempting to protect are stuff the uber-Conservatives, like Alito and Scalla, salivate over.
All courts are obligated to uphold the constitution and rule of law.
We have laws and rules the courts are not following and until someone brings them up they will keep going like they have. Now we do not have secret courts in this country that can by some pretended law end around the constitution. There is far more to all of this than space will allow me to write here, but everything they are doing and trying to pull off is to change our form of government to another and spying on everyone allows them to stop anyone from stoping them from pulling it off, they don't you to even have two pennies to rub tougher.
Obama is a criminal.