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Comment by flipbrad | Hacker News Reader

The fact that Eric Holder is a judge on this new court - while also working at Covington & Burling [1], a law firm actively involved in helping large companies defend these very same transatlantic data flows [2] - tells you all you need to know about the new court. Ditto his fellow judge, Rajesh De, who used to be the NSA's top judge.

[1] https://www.cov.com/en/professionals/h/eric-holder

[2] https://www.cov.com/en/news-and-insights/news/2019/07/coving...

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Eric Holder? Like, "Operation Fast and Furious" Eric Holder, who got a bunch of American citizens killed by guns he explicitly oversaw making sure they got into the hands of the Mexican cartels and got held in contempt of Congress over it?

Clearly, someone well-versed in government accountability. Really, that's all you need to know.

Secret courts shouldn't even be a concept in a 'democracy'.

Nor should it be in our republic. There is no national security override to our rights in the Constitution.

SCOTUS has already decided that these courts and the things they "permit" do not violate your rights.

So there's that.

Just FYI, the selector of the FISA Court Justices is the Chief Justice of SCOTUS. The SCOTUS Chief Justice is selected by the President [with Senate confirmation].

And the President is elected by the people…

by a weighted selection of the people who have very little say in which candidates are put forward.

Or was there an implied /s there?

Actually, for the last couple of decades, the primary process in both parties has become very open. There isn't even a requirement to be some sort of formal member of a political party, you only have to be registered (and in some states not even that).

There's a widespread conception that candidates are picked via meetings in smoke filled back rooms - that used to be true, but it isn't true (certainly not in the same way) anymore. Read up on the stories of various "insurgent" candidates in both parties over the last 20 years - the common element is organizing and campaigning so that primary voters actually check the box for you.

Didn't the democratic party just outright state that they could choose who they wanted without any input from the people and had no obligation to run a fair primary election? They went to court to defend their right to keep choosing candidates picked via meetings in smoke filled back rooms

I mean, they also gave us the Dred Scott ruling too. The courts sometimes make the exact wrong ruling.

We need to bring back constitutional amendments, cmon people we can do this

A valuable reminder that all three branches of government are worthless, not just the executive and the congressional.

Sounds like an unconstitutional ruling to me.

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