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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

In saner times this would be grounds to impeach the entire court. It is not their role to determine what is "too secret" but whether laws are constitutional or as the final appeal for the federal courts, including a case about whether the government is operating within the law or not.

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The US Justice system has been responding like this since at least the beginning of the War on Terror unfortunately. There are many lawsuits against the US government/CIA for their torture antics (leading to Congress writing their own report it!) that were dismissed as a matter of national security instead of dealing with the issue.

All of which exposes a constitutional weakness in the system: there's no way for the States to check the power of the federal government (short of what happened in the 1860s).

> there's no way for the States to check the power of the federal government

Literally a states’ convention clause built into Article V [1]. That lets states directly amend the Constitution. No Congress or Court required. (After that, we get into the grey area between law and power.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_Sta...

This isn't the issue. The reality is that actions taken covertly in the name of national security have wide bipartisan support. The states have the ability to change the Constitution (or send Congresspeople willing to change the laws), but pretty much everyone is perfectly fine with the way it is.

You can't really consent to something if you don't even know what you're consenting to. This even goes for congresspeople, most of who are as in the dark (wilfully or not) as we are.

Then let's not pretend it's some kind of federal vs unitary issue.

Lots of ways to get started!

States can withhold sending of collected fuel tax to feds.

States can remove exception that appears to be in State laws which allows IRS to file property lien without a court ruling.

States can mint their own gold or silver backed money.

States attorney general can start enforcing anti-monopoly laws against the medical cartels.

Unfortunately for civil rights and privacy, Americans no longer care.

Convention of States, perhaps.

https://cosaction-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/public/pocket_guide_...

I wonder what would you propose to have such a check possible; how it can be done?

I guess it would be making the United States more like the EU, where the states would either have vetoes or use Qualified Majority Voting.

Wouldn't make any difference since the spying is part of a large defence establishment which is extremely popular.

You know it's more than just the Supreme Court right? There were DOJ attorneys for the government arguing against Wikimedia at every appeal but no one ever questions them. Every privacy victory in the courts has been the result of some defendant convicted on the basis of legally questionable evidence or a group like the IJ or ACLU spending years arguing against government lawyers with almost unlimited resources.

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