On The Law of the Land
Parts of the PATRIOT Act were declered unconstitutional (finally!), specifically one dealing with recent "legal" updates to the FISA court which allows the Executive branch to perform searches without (or prior to) a court instruction -- which flies in the face of the 4th amendment protecting against unreasonable search and seizures.
The case is completely bizarre. How does one "misread" a fingerprint so that it looks like an actual other person's? At any rate, the man in question won $2 million in compensation and apologies from the FBI -- but also the right to challenge the parts of the PATRIOT Act that were used against him.
I'm pretty pissed off, first that so many of the Senators still in office today voted for these provisions initially. That might not be so bad given how the Senate looks today, but this exact same body voted to amend the FISA court powers (by basically not requiring them at all) up until February. The administration just yesterday (or was it Tuesday?) trying to make the case before this congress that the temporary extension should become permament. Now with this court ruling, I hope that becomes unlikely. Whoops. Hahaha.
~Sean
The case is completely bizarre. How does one "misread" a fingerprint so that it looks like an actual other person's? At any rate, the man in question won $2 million in compensation and apologies from the FBI -- but also the right to challenge the parts of the PATRIOT Act that were used against him.
I'm pretty pissed off, first that so many of the Senators still in office today voted for these provisions initially. That might not be so bad given how the Senate looks today, but this exact same body voted to amend the FISA court powers (by basically not requiring them at all) up until February. The administration just yesterday (or was it Tuesday?) trying to make the case before this congress that the temporary extension should become permament. Now with this court ruling, I hope that becomes unlikely. Whoops. Hahaha.
~Sean