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Comment by argumentum | Hacker News Reader

As the Constitution is the "supreme law of the land", nothing "unconstitutional" can simultaneously be "legal."

Until the SJ rules that a law is unconstitutional, it is still a law. When they make a ruling, it stops being a law.

I'm disappointed in the number of people who care more about legal vs illegal than about right vs wrong. Laws can be constitutionally proper and yet wrong.

No, it's either unconstitutional (and illegal) or it isn't. The Supreme Court has the authority to make that judgement at a point in time, but it's judgement applies retroactively to the law or action thereof in question.

"An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded hereby. No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it." - 16 American Jurisprudence 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256

Plus, this has already been found unconstitutional[1], but that decision was kept secret, cause, y'know... CLASSIFIED.

[1] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/fisc-ruling-surveil...

For the actions of the government the law is the definition of right/wrong, for better or worse (probably better, as otherwise right/wrong is strictly in the eye of the beholder, which is even more dangerous).

That's why so many people here defend companies like Google or Facebook for legally manipulating their accounting to pay less taxes.

Right/wrong is what the legislators are supposed to worry about when making the law, but once the law is set that's the framework.

So arguing about the legality does have a point here, as it indicates what parts of the law must be changed or erased completely to make our conceptions of right/wrong line up with what the law thinks.

> I'm disappointed in the number of people who care more about legal vs illegal than about right vs wrong. Laws can be constitutionally proper and yet wrong.

I'm disappointed at the number of people who project their value system ("right" and "wrong") on to everyone else then call all the people that disagree with them "Brave New World"-esque Sheeple. I just heard Clinton talking about the NSA situation today on Bloomberg. He said something along the lines of: we should make sure protections are in place, but you can't expect the government to ignore e-mail, etc, when everyone uses it to communicate these days.

The reporter seemed entirely happy with the answer. So: whose ideas of "right" and "wrong" are we using?

I'm doubtful that there's actually a conversation happening about right and wrong. The media attention surrounding these issues, and the treatment of the official actors, is centering entirely on the question of "is it legal?". They should, instead, be focusing on the question of "is it constitutional?". It's a very different kind of question. When all that can be said is that laws X, Y, and Z form the basis for action C, we have a fundamental failure at interrogating lawmakers and enforcement officials to ensure they are not complicit in violating the Constitution.

>So: whose ideas of "right" and "wrong" are we using?

That's the whole problem, isn't it? What the law is now can't be the standard for what the law should be or it can never change. But if we can't use legality to determine morality and morality in general is considered subjective then what are we supposed to do, flip a coin?

Obviously the answer is that we collectively have to define "wrong" based on logic, evidence and history. (The alternatives of basing it on "might makes right" or "loudest voice wins" may be popular but, at the risk of creating a cycle, that isn't right.)

So we need to have a debate. We need to see the evidence. How many terrorists have been foiled with this surveillance? How many could have been caught some other way and what would that have required? What are the risks to the public of allowing the government to accumulate this information? How does the one weigh against the other?

The problem is that we can't have the debate so long as they insist on keeping the evidence a secret. Which is why the secrecy itself is wrong -- it allows for unaccountable government power, which based on logic, evidence and history can lead to Very Bad Things That Must Never Happen Again.

How could this be disappointing? Nobody cares about what's legal, that is the point. We care about what is just.

You know that semantic distinction wasn't the point of his comment.

You have it wrong. Congress passes law to say, intercept all phone calls and store them. Until a court strikes it down is assumed constitutional and legal. You challenge it and then it becomes illegal and unconstitutional. (The court also changes its mind from time to time so it's not an exact science.)

The only thing we have wrong is that for many years we have allowed Congress to get away with implementing laws that are clearly unconstitutional.

It doesn't become unconstitutional when a court says so. From its inception either it is, or it isn't. The issue simply isn't decided until the court says so.

It doesn't become unconstitutional when a court says so. From its inception either it is, or it isn't. The issue simply isn't decided until the court says so.

From a practical point of view there's no difference, we can split hairs if you want.

There's obviously a difference .. the SC's decision can be applied retroactively to the cases in question.

Applying binary, a priori rigor to things that are written and interpreted by humans feels like the wrong path to go down.

> The issue simply isn't decided until the court says so.

Right. The NSA can make a good faith argument that they designed the program to stay within the bounds of Constitutionality. Their opinion can't override that of the Supreme Court, but until the Supreme Court rules they are entitled to try and interpret the law and act accordingly.

> assumed constitutional and legal

Wrongly assumed.

Correct. That's why every gov't worker or soldier takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution. It's up to all of us to reject obviously wrong laws.

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