Please show one single arrest of anything beyond terrorist assistance that has arrived from any 'wireatap' under the premise of the war on terror.... please show where in war (or approved military action) we are not allowed to target enemies, even if they have been US citizens who now have committed treasonous acts and are actively fighting against our country and assisting the enemy directly?? And please note that this country in times of war has never had to stop and get a warrant (or retroactively go back and obtain a US courts warrant) for the interception of enemy communications, even if a source or destination was a citizen or was a place in the US... whether those communications be physical (paper, etc) or electronic (radio, wired signal,. etc)
National defense is not just sitting back and 'protecting the border or homeland'... it does also involve offensive actions off of US soil
Illegal wiretaps and other forms of warrantless surveillance are obviously not used in court cases
because they're illegal. It's well-known and well-documented, the government has been found out and admitted to have illegally surveilled American citizens without warrant (the Attorney General confirmed the program's existence and operation without warrants in its spying on American citizens' domestic communications) and then immunized the telecommunications companies that aided in these crimes in the FISA bill of 2007. Asking for court cases where the government has revealed it committed a crime in bringing the case to prosecution indicates you're either A.) Stupid or more likely B.) exploiting a dishonest debate tactic of, "If you can't show the government is publicly unveiling its use of illegal surveillance in cases that would then be thrown out for misconduct, it must not exist."
Warrants are easy to obtain if someone is suspected of terrorism, federal agencies have innumerable means to spy on people in the immediate for a short period of time legally while a request for warrant is being reviewed if a case is made that the information being obtained is of a dire and critical nature. The only reason to avoid warrants for domestic surveillance is to have zero judicial oversight. The massive scope of the program also affirms that it is not merely used to intercept communication between people reasonably believed to be terrorists, as there is no way over 100,000 American citizens are involved in or communicating with terrorists. It is an illegal domestic spying program, period.
We have every right in war to execute people on battlefields engaged in warfare against us. That's not what al-Waliki has done or why he's being assassinated. There is zero evidence that the American citizen targeted for assassination has ever taken up any arms, been anywhere near any battlefield, or engaged in any hostilities that would make him a combatant. Rather, he's a radical cleric teaching an anti-American government ideology (protected under Free Speech laws in the U.S., just as the anti-American government ideology of armed militia groups and other militants is protected) to people. He is not a combatant being targeted on a battlefield, he is a disseminator of ideas we find dangerous who we'll now execute while he's in his home, traveling, or anywhere else we can find him. Without presenting evidence, charging him for any crime, or affording him the trial by jury guaranteed by the Constitution, the government has given him an extralegal death sentence. That's what so radical about this new claimed power, why its implications are so troublesome, doubly so since over 70% of the people the government has claimed are terrorists were found upon even the most meager of judicial review to be innocent of the charge and released. Now the government is asserting the right not just to imprison these people, but to assassinate them based solely on presidential decree of their guilt.
If he's guilty of treason, he can be tried before a court in absentia and if found guilty, the death penalty may apply. That's just one way such an action may be in accordance with the rule of law. Circumventing any court review, revoking the right to a trial, and declaring without any evidence but the word of the president that an American citizen who vigorously denies the charge that he's engaged in any hostilities is a "terrorist" and thus fit for assassination wherever in the world he is found is an egregious violation of many core principles of the Constitution and an extreme broadening of government and executive power and erosion of citizens' rights.
Defense and offense are not the same thing. Defense is just that: protecting our nation from harm. It is not "sitting back," as I suggested it involves a major reprioritization of border control, immigration reform, and domestic policing that would all be significantly ramped up, better funded, manned, and engaged, to be effective. But invading and occupying sovereign nations halfway around the world to install governments is not in any way national defense and does not in any way fall under the Constitutional charge of national defense.
You can say you like the war, support the war, think it's a good idea, whatever, but you can't pretend it's defending the homeland which is what the government was charged to do. Instead, it's the kind of foreign entanglement George Washington urged the country and government to avoid.
This is where you are wrong... because an interpretation of intent has already been made... judges, however, continually interpret and reinterpret constitutionality and make changes as a result without the amendment process
What you seem to fail to realize is that the constitution never gave the supreme court that power to interpret or reinterpret... the SC gave that power to itself without constitutional amendment, and as a result has unchecked and governed power in that matter... which is, in the spirit of our constitution, wrong
Then as asked.. please show where in the constitution that the specific power you speak of is granted to the judicial branch
Do you not agree that the constitution is indeed what gives the specific powers and limitations to the federal government?
Do you not agree that any and all changes, adds, or deletions to the constitution must be done thru the amendment process?
They're not
reinterpreting a thing, they're
interpreting the Constitution and its application, as the Constitution vested them the power to do.
Article III Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction,
both as to law and to fact, over any case before the courts. That means they have the power and role to determine the legality of issues and interpret the Constitution accordingly. It's in Article III, you know, the one about the Judicial Branch.
Having been vested with the power to interpret the Constitution's application to legal questions before it, the second Supreme Court in 1803's landmark Marbury v. Madison, found that the question of judicial review fell under the purview of the Judicial Branch and the Court. It was established in the Constitution and verified by the legal body entitled and enumerated with the power to determine the application of the Constitution to laws.
They're not changing, adding, or deleting anything from the Constitution. They don't make laws, Congress does. They simply interpret existing law and the Constitution, as they were empowered and designed to do by the framers of the Constitution.
Seriously, this is basic Civics stuff. You don't get what the Supreme Court does.
I want to make sure I'm reading this correctly. The government, not the constitution, gives us our freedoms?
The funny thing is that the government solved that issue for you. You are able to travel between states because a BIG FEDERAL government was created. Yes I know the american example may not be so clear, that s why I have another one for you:
