The Supreme Court guards its privacy. Too bad it doesn't care about yours and mine

[marmar]

The Supreme Court guards its privacy. Too bad it doesn't care about yours and mine
For a cabal that's about to kill off the constitutional right to privacy, SCOTUS sure keeps itself buttoned up

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
PUBLISHED MAY 14, 2022 8:00AM


(Salon) To use Justice Samuel Alito's criteria in his recently-leaked draft opinion overruling Roe v. Wade, where is it written in the Constitution that practically everything that happens at the Supreme Court is secret?

The answer, my worthies, is that it is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Secrecy — or, if you will, privacy — at the court is another one of those invented rights Alito and his pals are so fond of yapping about. The secrecy of that august body is almost absolute: Everything that happens at the Supreme Court, with the exception of its hearings and the publication of its decisions, is secret. The court maintains complete secrecy about how and why it chooses which cases to hear. The conferences held by justices during which they decide cases and record their votes is so secret they don't even allow their clerks inside the doors when they consider the arguments on either side of a case. Most justices demand that their clerks take an oath to keep secret everything they learn while carrying out their jobs.

There are no federal laws which mandate or govern the secrecy enjoyed by the Supreme Court. In fact, whoever leaked the Alito draft opinion cannot even be prosecuted, because he or she broke no law. There is nothing in federal statute or in the Constitution itself, for that matter, which mandates that draft opinions — or any other document produced at the court by the justices or their clerks or anyone else — be kept away from the prying eyes of the press or the public which, by the way, pays the salary of everyone working in that pile of Vermont and Georgia marble located just behind the Capitol.

If you listen to the justices themselves or so-called court-watchers or even members of the bar who practice before the Supreme Court, the reason for all the secrecy is tradition. It's always been that way, and so it should remain. In other words, everything at the Supreme Court is secret because they say so. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/05/14/the-guards-its-privacy-too-it-doesnt-care-about-yours-and-mine/

[Backseat Driver]

1. I should have scrolled through this one - it reminds me, in so many ways, of the

authoritative parental unit, dictating as it were. Who never heard the phrase, "Because I said so..." Then there was the follow-up, "You should have known better..." added to "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." It's pretty dangerous to ask, "Why?" The answer is blowin' in the wind...

Furthermore, I disagree with that sig line by Bob Marley. Am I just weird or what?...when certain music hits me, I experience great pain in its recollection of emotion or historic fact(s) - its sound and/or lyrics forever in my learned experience associated with pain...I assume many more experience some parsed notes or words that way.

Nevertheless, having read the article, I have to recommend the truths of it...

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread marmar.

[OMGWTF]

3. Lucien K Truscott IV is my friend's brother

and they are direct descendants of Thomas Jefferson. Subscribe to his brilliant newsletter. It’s the best $60 I spend every year.

[llashram]

4. I think that no matter

if people like Alito are on the Supreme Court and allegedly non-partisan...blah, blah, blah, they are power-grabbing and money-seeking scum. And d.trump knows some of his apparent crimes will end up before his packed court, he will 'walk'...

[Delmette2.0]

5. I am so glad the opinion was shared with us.

I know we are not suppose to argue or oppose our Supreme Court Judges but this latest brouhaha is exactly why the public needs to know well ahead of some decisions.
We needed to know ahead of time with Citizens United. Which was nothing of the sort.