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Comment by rhizome | Hacker News Reader

Oh, it's worse than that. You don't have standing even if you know you were surveilled:

https://www.eff.org/cases/al-haramain

As long as all possible proof is classified, nobody will ever have standing, and as we've seen in the Snowden case, classified info does not lose its classification when it's released to the public.

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I had heard of that case before, but didn't know why it was dismissed:

"The case was subsequently dismissed by the 9th Circuit on the grounds of sovereign immunity."

And sure enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity

"In the United States, the federal government has sovereign immunity and may not be sued unless it has waived its immunity or consented to suit."

So apparently the government cannot break the law, by definition. What the hell?!

"So apparently the government cannot break the law, by definition. What the hell?!"

history/explanation in the 'introductory' section:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/hjackson/FedSovereign_21....

IANAL but if the government is right by definition (on a legal basis), does that mean that the various suits now being filed don't have any teeth ?

That history is pretty unsatisfying when it first quotes Holmes, presumably a century or so after the constitution was ratified. So next I looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unite... and it cites a case from 1983. This makes me at least wonder at the idea it derives directly from English law at the founding of the U.S.; "you can't sue the King" does not obviously transfer right over in the atmosphere of the time.

ianal or historian.

The ultimate Joker card really.

I don't get why that is not used more often. There are some cases where it allows itself to be sued. Tort cases and I think patent infringement. But there aren't that many.

Democratic Governments are "punished" and fixed by voting for the right people. Un-democratic governments are "punished" and "fixed" by revolutions.

If it were used more often it would lose its efficacy as people would quickly see things for the sham that they are. You don't want to go nuclear too often lest people think you're a completely rogue entity.

It makes sense if you think about it. If Party A sues Party B and wins, the federal government is the ultimate top-level "enforcer" who makes sure that B pays up. Now, let's say that party B is the federal government. They get told to pay up, and say "no". What are you going to do about it? Appeal to a higher authority?

What kind of legal recourse does the UN have?

Somewhere in the constitution you can infer that dismantling and reassembling a government that doesn't serve the people is SOP.

The South tried that argument 152 years ago and look where it got them.

No, shoot them.

The USA has three branches of government, intend to help solve this problem. The federal government is not the top-level enforcer. The govt is for the people. The people are the top-level enforcer.

"The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Every time I see that quote I'm forced to wonder whether the person making it is really willing to take a gun and a rope and go out into the streets and start shooting representatives and hanging their corpses from lampposts as an example to the others, until their demands are met.

This is not addressed to, or accusing you, specifically. I'm just sick of hearing the bloody rhetoric.

> Appeal to a higher authority?

Some would say they have you there as well. Romans 13, specifically 3-5[1]. Maybe too many of our politicians are bible students.

[1]http://biblehub.com/romans/13.htm

This is a stinking remnant from a time we should have put behind us when we transitioned from monarchies to republics. Of the course the fucking king is going to say that the king is immune, the fucking king had a divine right to rule. But we consent ourselves to be governed and we are not divine. This sovereign immunity has to go. How can there be checks and balances if the fucking judiciary cannot be used by the people to rein in the other branches?

This all reminds me of that game we play as kids. Tag, you're it. Except when you get to the base. Then you can't be it. It's fine in a bloody kids game but not in real life. If the game is rigged, you stop playing the game. I'm not advocating revolution, just deprecating the rules that make the playing field totally not level.

Indeed, in those places which kept the Crown, the Crown's immunity has often been abolished or heavily modified.

This is akin to the argument Thomas Paine made in "Common Sense" http://bit.ly/168gJkB that fired up the colonists in early 1776. "We consent ourselves to be governed" and if we select one or more among us to carry out our business, those folks don't have rights that the rest of us don't.

However, even at the time, there were "elites" among the colonists who wouldn't have agreed. And so its been ever since. The rhetoric of a democratic republic used to sway and motivate regular folks in order to protect the power and interests of a few.

The Courts answer to that concern is: If you don't like the Executive, pick a better President.

Ultimately, this is a systemic problem, and it's not clear it's even possible for a small number of people to fix.

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