Yesterday, the Supreme Court sadly dismissed the ACLU’s case, Clapper v. Amnesty International, which challenged the FISA Amendments Act (FAA)—the unconstitutional law that allows the government to wiretap Americans communicating with people overseas.
since the Americans did not have definitive proof that they were being surveilled under the FAA—a fact the government nearly always keeps secret—they cannot challenge the constitutionality of the statute
As American science students struggle to compete with the global competition, Oklahoma is moving forward with a law that could ban Biology teachers from failing students who argue that humans co-existed with dinosaurs. The state legislator’s committee in charge of education standards has approved a law that would forbid teachers from penalizing students who argue against widely accepted scientific theories, such as evolution and climate change.
Source: Making It Illegal To Fail Science Students Who Argue Humans Co-Existed With Dinosaurs | TechCrunch
President Obama’s defenders keep citing sui generis conflicts to justify his actions in radically different circumstances.
If we sacrifice as much liberty to fight the War on Terrorism as we did to fight the Civil War or World War II, conflicts as close to all consuming as America has ever known, Osama bin Laden will truly have won.
Source: The Civil War and World War II: The Worst Guides in the War on Terrorism – The Atlantic
Can any of us imagine a time when we aren’t stripping down to our socks for travel, or sending security agents into mosques? Welcome to the age of perpetual conflict.
The president is anti-torture — which is to say he thinks the water-boarding of actual confirmed terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was wrong. He thinks it was wrong, no matter the goal — which is to say the president would not countenance the torture of an actual terrorist to foil a plot against the country he’s sworn to protect. But the president would countenance the collateral killing of innocent men, women and children by drone in pursuit of an actual terrorist. What is the morality that holds the body of a captured enemy inviolable, but not the body of those who happen to be in the way?
When is it acceptable to use the military, or military-grade {weapons, equipment, training, hardware, etc.} domestically? Is there legal due-process in place to ensure that assassinating American citizens in America [who are a clear and present danger] is not a step onto a slippery slope towards cowing our own populace with drone warfare?
RE:
From comments:
One MAJOR point being left out of those headlines are that there are not armed drones….they are not the “predator” versions the news always shows bristling with missiles.
They are surveillance drones, and if used in a man-hunt, how are they any different than a bunch of guys flying around in helicopters doing the same thing?
— anonymous
True, the ones in use right now in this case are not armed, but I think that makes “now” all the more important a time to ask the question in case we as a public wish to decide that the correct answer should be “never”, just like it is basically never okay for the state to use main battle tanks for the purpose of law enforcement.