Sheila has covered the Trump assassination attempt, so I’ll just say for now — pending new information — that I don’t think this will be the last attempt before November.
What I am here to talk about is charges against Alec Baldwin being dismissed with prejudice.
Some people see this as the exoneration of Baldwin.
We told you, and told you, and told you, and told you, and told you, and told you, and told you, and told you, and explained to all comers, in excruciating detail, how Baldwin was not legally responsible to any whit for the shooting on the set of Rust, explaining the safety rules and the chain of culpability using metric fucktons of pixels and internet bandwidth.
Sorry, Aesop; that isn’t what happened. Charges were dismissed for a deliberate Brady violation by prosecution: hiding evidence which defense seemed to believe to be exonerating. Defense had moved for this dismissal, and I find that odd.
Up to now, all the publicly available evidence and forensic reports indicated to me that Baldwin was guilty. Now, suddenly, new evidence appears. Two years after the shooting, a third party turned over some ammunition that he thought might be associated with the case. Without a trial with testimony, I don’t see how it is relevant. It might be, but I don’t know. The case against Baldwin was based on his own — multiple — safety violations; not on where the live ammunition came from. It wouldn’t matter where the live round came from if only Baldwin had followed just one of the four rules.
At opening statements Wednesday, prosecutors alleged Baldwin violated the “cardinal rules of firearm safety” by pointing the prop gun at Hutchins and pulling the trigger.
Assuming it is relevant, I would have thought defense would want to continue the trial and get the actual exonerating testimony on record, along with a formal acquittal. That would clear Baldwin’s name.
Instead, the defense effectively suppressed all the evidence — not just the new ammo evidence but everything else prosecution was prepared to present — themselves, at least so far as the public is concerned. No trial, no evidence presented. If defense actually thought the evidence was overwhelmingly exonerating, why move for dismissal for a Brady violation (something you might do before the trial starts) instead of moving for a directed verdict of acquittal (the normal thing, once a trial in in progress)?
Now Baldwin is going to have to live with having killed a woman, and having everyone look at him and think, You never were acquitted; you forced an end to the trial on a technicality. Why?
For that alone, I imagine a lot of actors and crew will be hesitant to work with Baldwin anywhere in the same county.
[best infommercial voice] But wait! There’s more! Baldwin’s defense:
“This was an unspeakable tragedy, but Alec Baldwin committed no crime. He was an actor, acting, playing the role of Harlan Rust,” attorney Alex Spiro said. “These ‘cardinal rules’ are not cardinal rules on a movie set.”
I also wouldn’t want to pay the insurance premiums for any film that includes Baldwin. Assuming any film with Baldwin can even get insurance coverage now.
Oh, boy. Last week, we saw “CHEVRON deference” overturned, eliminating the ATF-abused procedure of requiring judges to take the agency’s word for it when they creatively reinterpret laws.
Today, the Supreme Court took it quite a bit further in CORNER POST. This is a case over debit card merchant transaction fees, so you wonder what it has to do with Second Amendment issues.
Everything. And the EPA is going to hate this, too. Here’s the background.
In 2021, Corner Post joined a suit brought against the Board under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The complaint challenged Regulation II on the ground that it allows higher interchange fees than the statute permits. The District Court dismissed the suit as time-barred under 28 U. S. C. §2401(a), the default six-year statute of limitations applicable to suits against the United States. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.
The lower courts held that the statute of limitations clock started ticking the rule was published. An interesting take; imagine claiming that statute of limitations for robbery started running when the law was passed, rather than when the robbery took place.
That matters, because Corner Post didn’t exist when the transaction fee rule was published. Just like you might not have been born when the armed robbery law pass enacted. Corner post was injured when they opened for business and started accepting debit cards. That is when the statute of limitations starts counting down.
Held: An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of §2401(a)’s 6-year statute of limitations until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.
How does that apply to us and the ATF?
Until 1982, semi-auto firearms that fired from the open bolt were semi-autos. But that year, the ATF suddenly decided that open-bolt firearms are easily converted into machineguns, and thus are machineguns. Unless…
To make it worse, it only applied to those models sold after the ruling, while those sold prior somehow remain semiautomatic. This forced complete redesigns on the manufacturers.
Here we have a rule that is arbitrary, capricious, and in conflict with the law defining “machinegun.”
The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
“Restored,” not converted. It had to be a machinegun at some earlier point in its existence. But courts defer to the ATF’s re-definition, and send people to prison over semi-auto “machineguns.”
We got rid of that stupid deference last week. But it still looked like we were stuck with existing stupid, arbitrary, and capricious rules. No more.
Go out and buy one of those open-bolt SM10 machineguns. When you’re told to apply for your tax stamp, sue the ATF over the idiotic rule…
…because you were just now injured by it. And have standing.
tick tick tick tick tick
Every swamp agency’s years-old rules are now ripe for challenging all over again, without deference. I saw a comment at SCOTUSblog to the effect that SCOTUS just guaranteed itself horrendously full dockets for next few years.
Held: The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled.
When SCOTUS tossed the ATF’s unconstitutional bump-stock ban, they called out the ATF for attempting to take the legislative power of Congress. I thought it was a good start, and I looked forward to the Loper Bright ruling.
This decision doesn’t specifically mention “Cheveron deference” (the idea that courts should defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of a law over that of the challenger), but they certainly did not give the ATF deference here. So that’s a good precedent for gun owners challenging other ATF abuses.
The ATF lives for CHEVRON deference. That’s how two copies of the exact same model of semiauto pistol could be a semiauto, while one assembled the very next day is a machinegun. Or 37 mm projectiles are either not destructive devices (loaded with a black powder pyrotechnic charge) or are destructive devices (loaded with a bean bag). Or the magical way Desert Eagle .50s became destructive devices when they changed the method of measuring the bore. Or…
For too long, the ATF has relied on Just take our word for it, Your Honor. No more; now they have to prove their psychotic re-interpretations really are Congressional intent. And presumed innocence returns.
On the downside, just as has happened post-BRUEN, it’s going to take a lot of effort to get lower courts to pay attention, and stop granting unconstitutional deference to unelected DC swampcrawlers.
I hope the good attorneys at the Firearms Policy Coalition take a look at this decision and that white paper, and see if they can right some very old wrongs.
UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI is in the news with a Supreme Court ruling a few days ago. And the victim disarmament crowd is all over it.
You see, SCOTUS found that someone never convicted of a crime can still lose his Second Amendment rights via a domestic violent prevention order. Associate Justice Thomas dissented. For very good reasons.
Michigan’s Attorney General is one of the people eyeing this ruling with glee.
Rahimi was charged with unlawful firearm possession under 18 U.S. Code § 922(g)(8). An important part of that is this:
(A) was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate;
That’s a problem with Michigan’s ERPO law (“red flag”). Michigan’s law allows ex parte proceedings in which the accused does not receive “actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate.”
So, no, RAHIMI does not support your unconstitutional “red flag” law.
A lower court had dismissed the charge against Rahimi, based on the BRUEN test of general, historical legal tradition; the court found no early laws analogous to firearm possession bans via protective order. But — compromised? — Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, claims to have found not one, but two such laws.
By the 1700s and early 1800s, though, two distinct legal regimes had developed that specifically addressed firearms violence: the surety laws and the “going armed” laws. Surety laws were a form of “preventive justice,” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 251 (10th ed. 1787), which authorized magistrates to require individuals suspected of future misbehavior to post a bond
[…]
Surety laws could be invoked to prevent all forms of violence, including spousal abuse, and also targeted the misuse of firearms.
Can you spot the subtle difference between a surety bond to prevent a person performing an actual violent act, and a protective order that bans possession of a tool regardless of whether it was used?
Dolly-influenced(?) Roberts couldn’t.
His other example law similarly misses the mark.
The “going armed” laws—a particular subset of the ancient common law prohibition on affrays, or fighting in public provided a mechanism for punishing those who had menaced others with firearms. Under these laws, individuals were prohibited from “riding or going armed, with dangerous or unusual weapons, [to] terrify[ ] the good people of the land.”
The “going armed” laws were specific to threatening and menacing actions using guns (and other weapons), not the simple possession of those implements.
Roberts missed it by this ……………….. […] ………………….. much. I’m not sure how he missed it, since I figured it out two years ago. Yes, I examined historical surety bonds and such in this very light. Maybe the Fifth Circuit read it, even if Roberts didn’t.
Thomas, dissenting, gets it right, as usual.
To trigger §922(g)(8)’s prohibition, a restraining must bear three characteristics. First, the order issues after a hearing where the accused “received actual notice” and had “an opportunity to participate.”
No ex parte proceedings allowed.
Just as important as §922(g)(8)’s express terms is what it leaves unsaid. Section 922(g)(8) does not require a finding that a person has ever committed a crime of domestic violence. It is not triggered by a criminal conviction or a person’s criminal history, unlike other §922(g) subsections.
And Thomas correctly notes that this is a deprivation of rights not triggered by a criminal conviction. Plus…
In addition, §922(g)(8) strips an individual of his ability to possess firearms and ammunition without any due process. Rather, the ban is an automatic, uncontestable consequence of certain orders.
The bans firearm possession, not just threatening or menacing actions. Sometimes it’s like Thomas reads my work as much as I read his. (That’s a joke; I’d be dumbfounded if Thomas knows who I am even if prompted with my name.)
And what does Clarence Thomas think of Roberts’ surety laws argument?
Section 922(g)(8) violates the Second Amendment. First, it targets conduct at the core of the Second Amendment— possessing firearms. Second, the Government failed to produce any evidence that §922(g)(8) is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. To the contrary, the founding generation addressed the same societal problem as §922(g)(8) through the “materially different means” of surety laws.
Aha! the outright ban on mere constitutionally protected possession is not analogous, it is a “materially different means.”
Thomas notes that even the prosecution didn’t try to present surety and going armed laws as analagous to 8 U.S. Code § 922(g)(8).
Despite canvassing laws before, during, and after our Nation’s founding, the Government does not identify even a single regulation with an analogous burden and justification.
The Government couldn’t come up with even one, so Roberts invented one for them.
That opening sentence explains much: a three judge (2 Dubya appointees, and a Trump appointee) panel, not en banc. I’ve no doubt that the state is preparing a motion for en banc review.
The decision, United States v. Duarte, is here. The majority based this ruling on BRUEN, with a dash of HELLER: there is no national “historical tradition of” barring felons who have completed their sentences from possessing firearms. Some readers may recall that such a bar never existed until the Gun Control Act of 1968, less than 50 years ago.
Almost two years ago, I pointed out that, “Much of the GCA ’68 is on very thin ice.”
The dissent, by Dubya appointee Judge Milan Smith Jr., is interesting in a morbid way.
The Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), did not overrule Vongxay. Instead, Bruen reiterates that the Second Amendment right belongs only to law-abiding citizens.
That’s a two-fer. First, the referenced Vongxay is a 2010 Ninth Circuit opinion. Smith is asserting that d 2022 BRUEN, by the lowly Supreme Court of the United States — you know; that one above the Ninth — does not override the majestic Ninth’s precedent. His rationale is that BRUEN didn’t specifically mention and overturn Vongxay by name.
Mommy! Timmy won’t stop poking me!</i?
Stop poking your sister, Timmy.
Mommy, he’s poking me again!
Timmy! I told you stop that!
But that was when I poked her with my index finger. You didn’t say I couldn’t use my middle finger, Mama.
Second, BRUEN does not reiterate “that the Second Amendment right belongs only to law-abiding citizens.” On the contrary, in BRUEN Associate Justice Breyer, in his dissent admitted:
Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons.
BRUEN determined that law-abiding people do have Second Amendment protected rights, but it does not specifically exclude convicted felons who have completed their sentences, and presumptively reformed and now law-abiding people, whom it’s also presumptively safe to let walk our streets.
Rather like recognizing the right of a convicted felon, who has completed his sentence, to vote.
The Supreme Court today heard oral arguments in Cargill v. Garland, the challenge to Trump’s (yeah, he still owns it) bump-stock ban.
Now, it’s true that we still have Clarence Thomas, who is intelligent and willing to study facts at issue. But we also have Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“And when, you know, ‘function’ is defined, it’s really not about the operation of the thing. It’s about what it can achieve, what it’s being used for. So I see Congress as putting function in this. The function of this trigger is to cause this kind of damage, 800 rounds a second or whatever.”
That was after the government claimed that a semiauto rifle with a bump-stock can fire 600 rounds per minute. But Brown, with firearm knowledge exceeding that of John Moses Browning, knows better: 800 rounds per second.
Probably theoretically, higher, once you account for those magazine changes in that one second.
Just for comparison, the GAU-8/A Avenger seven-barreled, Gatling-style autocannon in the A-10 attack aircraft — the beloved “Warthog” — has a measly rate of fire of just 3,900 rounds per minute; twelve times slower that Jackson’s magical bump-stocked gun.
But back to bitter reality. We’re stuck with ignorant high court judges, who when even the banners inflated claims fall short, simply make up their own “facts” to rationalize the infringement of allegedly protected rights.
Oh, well; however SCOTUS rules, Thomas’ takedown of Jackson’s idiocy should be amusing.
Understanding use of force law is pretty important if you’re going to carry a gun, whether lawfully or unlawfully. And we’ve identified another attorney you really don’t to defend you in court because defense attorneys should know that, too.
KC parade shooting suspects may pursue ‘stand your ground’ defense
The man accused of firing the first shots at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally told authorities he felt threatened, while a second man said he pulled the trigger because someone was shooting at him, according to court documents.
[…]
Trial attorney Daniel Ross described the stand your ground law as a “formidable defense” that he and many other Kansas City defense attorneys anticipate will be used in Mays’ and Miller’s cases. He said the law puts the onus on the prosecution to disprove claims that a shooting is lawful self-defense.
Ross needs to, you know, actually read563.031, Missouri’s “Stand Your Ground” law. “Felt threatened” is not sufficient.
1. A person may, subject to the provisions of subsection 2 of this section, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he or she reasonably believes such force to be necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force by such other person, unless:
Reasonably believes the use of force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat. The problem with that appears to be this:
When interviewed by law enforcement in the hospital, Mays said he drew his gun first and began firing first. When asked why he advanced on the group of people to begin with, Mays said, “Stupid, man. Just pulled a gun out and started shooting. I shouldn’t have done that. Just being stupid.” He claimed that someone in the group had told him “I’m going to get you,” which he took as meaning “I’m going to kill you.”
So Mays approached them first, drew first (if his opponent hadn’t drawn, that seems to leech some of the “imminent” from the situation), and shot first. Let’s look at the first exception to the 563.031 defense.
(1) The actor was the initial aggressor
Mays’ own words seem to indicate that he was the initial aggressor. Mean words don’t necessarily count. For a SYG defense, Mays would have to explain why he reasonably believed that “I’m going to get you,” was both a credible death threat and imminent. And why those words from an unknown “someone” justified targeting Miller, or was it the whole group. We really don’t know that part yet.
And that would only justify the use of force against the second shooter, Miller, or possibly the two unnamed minors arrested, if they were shooting at Mays. It would not be a defense for the innocent parade attendees who were not involved to the alleged dispute who were also shot (with one killed).
Miller might have a SYG defense for shooting at Mays; but again that doesn’t apply to the bystanders shot.
Even when the use of deadly force is appropriate, you have a legal obligation not to kill innocent bystanders; that’s at least manslaughter. Merely wounding the innocent is assault.
As yet, we’re only seeing a couple of second degree murder charges. I think those are just placeholders while the forensics folks sort which of the 23 people were each shot by whom. I expect Mays, at least will be facing multiple attempted murder charges (for the group he seemed to be firing on). At best, whoever killed the DJ will see a manslaughter charge, and everyone who wounded the others will see assault charges.
There were at least four guns located, and quite a few rounds fired, so sorting that out is going to take a while.
Federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, of the Middle District of Florida, ruled that the ban on firearm possession in post offices is unconstitutional, in US v. Ayala. She cites the BRUEN test of general, historical legal tradition.
Mizelle gave the government multiple chances to present some evidence of such historical tradition. The best they could do?
the United States fails to point to sufficient historical evidence supporting § 930(a)’s application here. (providing only two paragraphs listing potential historical analogues without any analysis of how they are relevantly similar).
Mizelle herself did much more. Using USPS documents, she demonstrated that there has been a longstanding tradition of mail robberies and assaults; in a postal system itself of longstanding — pre-Revolutionary War — tradition. Yet never, until 1964 were firearms banned from any federal facility. The first specific post office gun ban was 1972. 18 U.S. Code § 930, the law under which Defendant Ayala was charged, didn’t come about until just 1988.
Mizelle took the government on a tour through American history, giving specific examples of the post office allowing clerks to arm themselves, and (again citing a USPS reference) “the Postmaster General armed railway mail clerks with “government-issued pistols” from World War I.” (emphasis in the original)
This is a lady who clearly read and understood Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’ BRUEN decision. In fact, in a conversation I mentioned that this decision reads like she was a Thomas protégé. Which prompted me to look up Judge Mizelle
She clerked for Clarence Thomas. I think he can be proud.
By the way, for those interested, Mizelle was the same federal judge who struck down the fed ChinCOVID mask mandates.
Dictatorship, form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations. The term dictatorship comes from the Latin title dictator, which in the Roman Republic designated a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in order to deal with state crises. Modern dictators, however, resemble ancient tyrants rather than ancient dictators. Ancient philosophers’ descriptions of the tyrannies of Greece and Sicily go far toward characterizing modern dictatorships. Dictators usually resort to force or fraud to gain despotic political power, which they maintain through the use of intimidation, terror, and the suppression of basic civil liberties. They may also employ techniques of mass propaganda in order to sustain their public support.
I look at today’s political climate and I can’t escape the idea that this is where we are. Small group? Politicians and activist judges are trying to keep former President Trump off the ballot. Whether or not you love or hate him, people should have the chance to vote for the candidate they want to lead the country. That’s how it is suppose to work in a Constitutional Republic. Demoncratic policies are yielding the results one would expect from policies created and implemented by a bunch of college educated/indoctrinated marxists. Lower standards of living, shortages, poverty and crime are common in those sorts of 3rd world countries run by the left. The left is the left is the left, the world over. Now I think many people suspected on day one that Biden wasn’t really the President when he was signing all those executive orders and he said he didn’t even know what he was signing and an aide snapped at him “Just sign it”. Really? That’s how you talk to the President of the United States of America? No, this is Obama’s third term.
Extraordinary powers, like the power to force people into dangerous medical experiments. Like the power to shut down business. Except for the demoncratic politicians of course. Like the power to shut down free speech of those who tried to warn about the danger. Like the power to persecute those who question anything the government doesn’t want to answer for. Say, for example the validity of an election. Now demoncrats have been contesting elections for years. Stacy Abrams still claims she’s governor. A gaggle of them object every time a Republican wins the Presidency. Nothing ever happens to them, but they do deny the election.
Uses force or fraud to gain power? Goodness knows there was plenty of evidence that the elections of 2020 were not clean, and people attempted to make that knowledge known at the time it was happening the media #FakeNews either ignored it or lied about it. Then came the Georgia runoff election for two senators. As nothing had been done to fix the voting problem in Georgia, predictably the communists won. The group that documented multiple cases of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election even made a documentary. True The Vote recently won their case in Georgia about the senatorial runoff race against Stacy Abrams, video about 8 minutes https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/judge-issues-2020-election-challenge-ruling-facts-matter-5558563
Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote and Greg Phillips were the leads in the documentary 2000 Mules that did extensive documentation on the voter fraud of the 2020 election. It’s well worth watching, they explain their search techniques and have mountains of video proving their point. And they have been persecuted by the government for doing that. We’ll revisit this in a minutes.
But onto the propaganda aspect. The marxist talking heads called the “media” are having kittens by the batch about how if President Trump wins the election he will shoot demoncrats that don’t clap at his inaugural speech. Why democracy (rule of mob) won’t be safe! The only way to save democracy is by demoncrats destroying it. At least according to them. They can only save democracy by preventing a large swath of the public from voting for the candidate of their choice. They have equally pearl clutching guests on who solemnly intone that former President Trump can’t possibly hold office because of the 14th Amendment. An Amendment created to keep the members of the former confederacy from holding office after the civil war ended. But I don’t believe it was ever actually enforced. Since the mass formation psychosis operation known as “covid” the media has a successful playbook and they are sticking to it. But the establishment media has possibly overplayed their hand this time as they cover for the Obiden crime junta. People see that the costs of living are soaring, the Obiden junta is redistributing money from Americans to illegal invaders, crime is going up and the ever present attempts to disarm law-abiding Americans has not abated one whit. Many of “We the people” don’t like living under a marxist regime. Not one bit. But perhaps the lame-stream media is losing it’s credibility. People, I don’t think, believe them much anymore. Although msnbc’s loyal 7 listeners still tune in and hang on every word, and cnn’s 12 are still showing up to hear whoever hasn’t been arrested for some indecent act yet.
So what to do to win an election with an unpopular, corrupt, incompetent, demented candidate?
Going to the part of a dictatorship about terror, intimidation and removal of civil right, that brings us back to January 6th. A day the left loves, loves to talk about, loves to celebrate, a day made just for them. And it was.
Representative Clay Higgins, I just love this guy. Former military, former law-enforcement officer he has a no nonsense style and doesn’t let up. He’s sort of like a pitbull with glasses. Plus I like to listen to him talk.
I’ve mentioned before the documentary done by the Epoch Times that extensively covered the day with film obtained from people who were there as well as independent journalists. They interview people that were there and tell their stories, they have video of the murder of Ashli Babbitt and Roseann Boyland, killed in cold blood by Michael Boyd and Lila Harris. Things demented Joe Biden still lies about. I don’t know if it’s free to watch or not. After all this time it may be. https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/the-real-story-of-jan-6-documentary-4596670
It’s pretty recently released so it may or not be free to watch.
The FIB is ramping up the terror and intimidation as they’ve said now they are going to go after people that weren’t even in the Capitol, but were just there. They’re being very public about it. They want the terror and intimidation, they want U.S. afraid to speak out, to donate to, work for or attend a rally. Their message is don’t even think about it.
Which brings me to this. Greg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht are not only fighters for truth, justice and the American way of life, they are also trying to help the January 6th political prisoners held by the Obiden crime junta. The January 6th political prisoners put together a video, it’s a time line of events that happened that day. Greg says it’s a little rough, but considering they made the video mostly by themselves, it’s amazing. It’s being hosted by open.ink set up by Greg. There is a huge collection of material there, not just this video and it’s well worth checking out. It’s a bit over 1 hour and is free to watch. From open.ink
J6: A True Timeline gives the audience a never-before-seen timestamped blueprint for the events of January 6, 2021, as they unfolded in real time. No other film to date fills the gaps or tells the story chronologically the way this film does. The film is also different from anything produced to date because a small group of protestors, some who are J6 defendants, have been the ones to collect hours of footage to help contextualize the events of the day. The film was funded and produced entirely through small donations and tens of thousands of volunteer man hours. The hope is that the film will provoke all Americans to be more curious about the true timeline of January 6.
I think we can see who is behaving like a dictator and who isn’t. Please pray for America, for many reasons and please pray for our January 6th political prisoners and their families.
For years, I’ve warned about the dangers of precedents; in laws, bureaucratic regulation, and judicial. My personal ball got rolling back inthe 1990s with the passage of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. CALEA was passed to “help” LE catch criminals, by making it easier to tap phone calls.
The Communications Assistance for law Enforcement Act (CALEA) is a statute enacted by Congress in 1994 to require that telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure that they have the necessary surveillance capabilities to comply with legal requests for information. CALEA is intended to preserve the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct electronic surveillance while protecting the privacy of information outside the scope of the investigation.
Sure. But it morphed into requiring the capability to monitor 10% of switch traffic at the same time; ten percent of all phones in the country. And remotely, so LE doesn’t even have to come to the switch office and physically tap a single line. It was expanded to include Internet traffic.
What could possibly go wrong? Who could have foreseen that someone later would use those tools to monitor thousands of innocent Americans, or even spy on the opposition’s election campaign?
Well… “Who,” other than myself and thousands of other privacy advocates.
The Colorado Supreme Court just gave us a real doozy of a precedent: it just declared Donald Trump to be an “insurrectionist” ineligible to appear on the state primary ballot.
Love Trump or hate him (and I’m no great fan), the “reasoning” and “process” behind this decision is frightening; enough so that I’ll never travel to or through Colorado again.
The CO supreme court majority (there are three dissenters with some self-awareness) simply declared Trump to be guilty of insurrection. They deliberately and specifically denied the need for an actual charge of 18 U.S.C. § 2383 insurrection, a trial, evidence, or conviction. They specifically denied any requirement for Fifth Amendment due process. The accusation — in a civil case that Trump was not a party to — is all it takes for a life sentence of ineligibility to hold office or appear on a ballot.
Because Amendment 14, Section 3 is magically “self-executing.”
There is no Fifth Amendment in Colorado.
If this were to go to the US Supreme Court (and Trump says he’ll appeal), we might well learn there is no Fifth Amendment in the country.
But let’s look at the flip side of this insane precedent, under the almost-worst case scenario*:
Imagine down the road we end up with a hard-core right-wing administration; a Republican president perhaps, with as little respect for the whole Constitution as many current Republicans (don’t forget who saddled us with CALEA, PATRIOT, and bump-stock bans in the first place). Let’s say President Smith ran on a platform plank of doing something about the ATF, winning hearts and minds of American gun owners.
On the one hand, we have an agency whose specific job is to infringe on Second Amendment rights.
On the other hand, we have a precedent that says Constitutional amendments are automatically “self-executing,” and punishments for violation of the 2A don’t require indictment, trial, evidence, facing accusers, or defense. And one day, President Smith Tyrant simply send US Marshals to every ATF office in the country to round up every agent and employee, and drag their sorry asses off to the gulags, never to be heard from again.
Or… Federal Election Commission, meet the self-executing First Amendment.
You can probably think of one or two others that could use a dose of Constitutional self-execution.
So to speak.
* The worst case scenario would be SCOTUS making this a national precedent with the current administration, which proceed to rape the country faster and harder than it already is.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
Password Reset
Please enter your e-mail address. You will receive a new password via e-mail.
