So which Amendment is it that permits subordination of the Constitution to "safety from terrorism?"

[markpkessinger]

23. Actually, the question of what is or is not Constitutional . . .

Last edited Fri Jun 14, 2013, 03:46 AM - Edit history (1)

. . . is not a question determined by a single Court ruling. That determination takes place continually, as prior court holdings are overturned and new ones are issued. Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public accommodations, was the law of the land from 1896 until 1954, when it was overturned by the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws only as against gay people, ws in force from 1986 until it was overturned in 2003 by the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Ordinary citizens, through their own political activism, play a crucial role in the changes in understanding that cause rulings to eventually be overturned, so the suggestion that it is strictly a matter for the courts and that the public has nothing to say about the matter is ignorant of the way our system works, as well as being ignorant of history.

Oh, how I wish we could reanimate James Madison or John Adams -- I think it would be incredibly amusing to watch you try to convince them that a secret court with no accountability or check, iissuing secret warrants for broad-based surveillance and storage of data concerning the private communications of millions of American citizens for whom there is no reasonable suspicion that they have committed any crime, is somehow consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.