The fight to get the judicial system to rule on the constitutionality of the NSA metadata surveillance program continues today, after the Supreme Court announced it is refusing without comment to take up the case now.
The move isn’t surprising, as it is unusual for the Supreme Court to allow escalations straight from district courts without letting the US Court of Appeals have a go at it first.
The Larry Klayman case is the furthest along of the various cases against the surveillance, and got the December ruling that the program was almost certainly unconstitutional.
The judge did nothing to end the program, however, and the case is likely to flounder for months if not years before it gets back to the Supreme Court through the direct route.
With the current legal justification for the surveillance centering on Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which is scheduled to expire on June 1, 2015, it seems increasingly likely that the case as such may never find the Supreme Court at all, and will just die on the vine, barring officials trying to rejustify the scheme on some new basis.
The refusal to hear the case is a victory for the Justice Department’s efforts to keep the scandal out of the courts, arguing the lower courts don’t have jurisdiction and the higher courts shouldn’t touch it so soon. The Justice Department didn’t submit any argument at all this time, assuming they’d win.
But when they want to rig an election (Bush v. Gore, 2000), the case gets the fast track to the Supreme Court.
and if it deals with abortions, homosexuals, letting the rich and corporations buy politicians, phony "free speech" cases, then the 9 senile morons are all over it.
The NSA spying is blatantly unconstitutional. But what do I know. I don't have a fancy law degree allowing me to use tortured logic to justify the unjustifiable.
Another example of why the US has become a failed state. There may be a perception of normalcy, but its a house of cards.
The failure by the Supreme Court to address this blatant abuse of the 4th amendment and fundamental right to privacy clearly demonstrates the federal judiciary is no longer a check on executive and congressional powers.
The neocons have ripped the blindfold off Lady Justice and forced her to do the bidding of tyrants.