CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS SECRET STAR CHAMBER COURT ?......On Sunday, the New York Times published a report on FISA, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, that has proved to be a real eye-opener. So far, Americans have paid scant attention to FISA and its machinations, but this might get their attention: Chief Justice John G. Roberts appointed all 11 of the judges on the court and will continue to do so for as long as he is Chief Justice–basically, the rest of his life. The FISA judges serve for seven-year terms. Ten of them are Republicans. Harvard law professor Cass R.Sunstein has written about evidence that: …federal judges (no less than the rest of us) are subject to group polarization, which exists when like-minded people go to extremes. Did I mention that what the court does is done in secret, without review, without checks and balances, without hearing more than one side of a case? Ironically, the court was established in 1978 to keep the government from abusing their wiretapping skills. But in 1989, the Supreme Court established the ‘special needs doctrine’ which overrode the protections in the 4th Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures. The ruling allowed drug testing of railway workers because it said, as phrased in the New York Times:
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 14:38:15 +0000