They break the law, you sue, courts throw out your case
I’m going to take a break from our relentlessly local focus to highlight an important development.
So you know how the government is spying on Americans? Most everyone agrees: it’s illegal, even unconstitutional.
The good folks at the ACLU have tried to sue the government and bring the case to the Supreme Court who, despite being of a dangerous “pro-business, pro-Republican” cast, still are the closest we have to an impartial branch of government. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out their case based on a technicality.
Here’s the deal. You can’t bring a case to court if you don’t have standing. You don’t have standing unless you can prove that you have been personally victimized by the subject of the suit. The Sixth Circuit Court demanded that, in order to sue the government, you have to prove that you personally have been illegally spied on. The White House, on the other hand, is using the legally questionable idea of the “state secrets priivilege” to refuse to reveal any victims of the suit.
So here we have a Kafkaesque situation: You can’t sue and stop the government from breaking the law, because our lawbreaking government refuses to officially tell you that you’re being spied on.
The erosion of our civil rights continues. When will we ever rise up?
Looks like we might have a breakthrough, however. The Treasury Department slipped up and accidentally gave attorney Wendell Belew documents showing that he was being wiretapped.
He has standing. We’ll be watching his case closely.
Remember, we only have Dick Cheney’s word that he’s only spying on “suspected terrorists”. He wouldn’t be ‘Tricky Dick 2.0′ if he didn’t take the chance to spy on domestic political enemies; competing business interests; anyone he wanted.
If only we had a truly open government. Then we wouldn’t have to take his word that he’s obeying the law. We wouldn’t have to take the Mayor’s word that we should ditch the Rural/Metro ambulance company. We wouldn’t have to file FOIA requests to shake out information that they cheerfully hand over without complaint in Florida.
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