The abuse of the ‘standing’ argument

I mentioned a few days ago a hopeful sign in that a US District Court judge Katherine Forrest had ruled that the NDAA, an awful piece of legislation, was unconstitutional. Glenn Greenwald later wrote also hailing the ruling and examining it in more detail. He highlights the fact that the judge rejected all three of the Obama administration’s objections to the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality.

The ruling was a sweeping victory for the plaintiffs, as it rejected each of the Obama DOJ’s three arguments: (1) because none of the plaintiffs has yet been indefinitely detained, they lack “standing” to challenge the statute; (2) even if they have standing, the lack of imminent enforcement against them renders injunctive relief unnecessary; and (3) the NDAA creates no new detention powers beyond what the 2001 AUMF already provides.

Note that it was the standing issue that was used to overturn an earlier federal court ruling that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional.

The standing requirement makes sense in general. If people could bring lawsuits without having suffered any concrete injury, then we would be even more awash in litigation than we are now. But what constitutes a concrete injury has to be judged differently when the issue involves relative intangibles such constitutionally protected freedoms as opposed to (say) defective products.

It is significant that the judge in the NDAA case threw out the ‘standing’ dodge, rejecting the administration claim that the people bringing the case do not have the right to sue since they have not (as yet) suffered any injury the law. Of course, the government then also invokes national security to argue that they should not be forced to reveal if you are being targeted or not. It is a perfect Catch-22: You can’t complain because you cannot show that the law targets you and we, the only ones who know who is being targeted, are not going to tell you if you are or not.

The government will certainly appeal. Unfortunately, the higher courts have been far too sympathetic to the government whenever it claims national security for its abominable actions.

The surveillance state and whistleblowing

The Obama administration can be characterized by at least three features: vast over-reaching in its claim to executive power, egregiously violating people’s liberties, and indulging in excessive secrecy.

Whistleblowers have provided a valuable service in letting us know what is going on and exposing wrongdoing and the administration has been a vigorous prosecutor of leakers and whistleblowers, demanding access to all manner of private communications from reporters and employees in their efforts to identify and harshly punish anyone who crosses them. [Read more…]

Goldman Sachs, short selling, and naked short selling

I do not directly trade in stocks although like anyone with a retirement account, someone is trading on the stock market with my savings. My lack of interest may be related to my lack of interest in gambling generally and to my lack of a desire to make more money. I have a job that pays me enough for my needs and that is enough. My main interest in the financial world is more on the macro side, to understand how it impacts the political and social worlds. But the recent global financial turmoil has resulted in me learning more about the world of high finance than I ever wanted. [Read more…]

Exposing the seamy underbelly of the Orthodox Jewish community

In following up the recent revelations of sexual abuse and cover up in the Orthodox Jewish community, I came across Shmarya Rosenberg, a blogger at Failed Messiah, who has been shining a bright and unflattering light on what goes on in that world. His website reveals a religious community whose leaders and members seems to be as zealous as the Catholic Church in protecting sexual predators and abusers and rapists. [Read more…]

Colorado state Day of Prayer proclamations ruled unconstitutional

Last Thursday, a panel of state appellate court judges ruled that proclamations of a Colorado Day of Prayer by successive governors violated the ‘Preference Clause’, the state constitution’s equivalent of the Establishment Clause of the federal constitution. The judges state in their opinion what should be obvious, that not having the government endorse their praying is not tantamount to not allowing them to pray at all. [Read more…]