Supreme Court denies cert in el-Masri rendition case

Denial of cert != endorsement

Denial of cert just means that, like nearly 99% of cases sent to the supreme court, they won't bother hearing it. This is not at all the same as implicitly endorsing the policy. One might argue that they really ought to have decided to hear it, and I'd agree, but it's going a bit too far to equate refusing to hear the case with endorsing it, given how rare it is for them to hear a case in general.

Denial of Cert is not Endorsement

True taking a pass is not endorsement. If they wanted to endorse it they would have taken the case on. It is too fundamental (too fundamentally un-American) to take a pass on, yet they did.

I think it means that the split court didn't know where they would land and both sides, especially the non-neocon (ie the regular conservatives & Ginsberg) thought it too important to take on without knowing they could prevail.

Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave.

Shadows

Like boxing with shadows on artificial quicksand !

How nice for we accused the Russians of hiding behind an Iron Curtain of our creation , who played by our rules all the time !

We cheated at every turn of the dice but still to this day our Military Wankers hide behind the evil wall of deception lies and shadows where truth is never allowed to see the light of day , secure in the knowledge they are protecting their own empire at the cost of freedom and democracy !

All these actions make those godless communist Russians at the height of the so called "Cold War" look like innocent babes in the woods !

It's the law

Am I right in thinking the role of the judiciary is to apply the laws created by the people's representatives?

If so surely they pretty much have to go with this as it's the law?

If the American people are worried about it why don't they vote for a party who would stand against it? No point having a democracy and then complaining when the democratically elected leaders do things that you don't like. If you don't like them vote for someone else.

@breakfast

You don't know what you're talking about. It's not the law and it's not the wish of democratically elected legislation. State secrets privilege is a matter of precedent (that means previous court rulings), not legislation.

@Stuart Finlayson

Well, if it's not the wish of the democratically elected legislative why does it get used so often? They could even choose to change it, presumably, what with them being the ones who write the law?

Surely that's the whole point of the principle of separation of powers?

And what about FISA?

The basic argument seems to be that some cases involve potential evidence so secret that it shouldn't be published. This isn't, on the face of it, irrational. While some of the 20th Century cases now look like an abuse of privilege, the number of cases was small.

Meanwhile, the FISA court was set up to provide warrants for wiretaps based on secret evidence. Had the legislature cared, they could have passed laws setting up a similar court, staffed by judges with security clearance, which could examine the evidence and make a judgement based on the facts.

But in the 21st Century, the President ignores the law, including FISA, and invokes diverse and ingenious privileges more frequently than any predecessor, while neither judiciary nor legislature seems willing to stop him.

It may be easily argued that, on available evidence, the President, the Vice-President, and many other officials, perhaps including Supreme Court Justices, could be impeached under the terms of the US Constitution for assorted "high crimes and misdemeanours. As it stands, having sworn a solemn oath to defend the US Constitution, we might consider the overwhelming majority of the legislature, judiciary, and executive to be the lowest of the low, vile scum not worthy of the attention of any true Englishmen. They are oathbreakers, and thus they are nothing. They are outside the law, and its protection, and yet less than any outlaw.

Weshould neither speak of them nor to them. We should not acknowledge their presence in any way. We should neither sell to them nor buy from them, for they are forsworn, and by their own deeds they have thrown away all that makes them worthy of the status of a man.

And if the God they swore by does not reward their oathbreaking, then he too is forsworn

Maybe I should be more careful about dancing in thunderstorms?