U.S. justices reject call to review intelligence court action on phone records

Reuters ^ | November 18, 2013 | Lawrence Hurley

[EveningStar]

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would not review a ruling by a secretive intelligence court that authorized government access to millions of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) phone-call records.

[Mr. Lucky]

Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution.

The "cases and controversies" language of the 1st paragraph prohibits federal courts from rendering decisions where the parties don't have a dog in the hunt, while the 2nd paragraph limits the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to the types of cases enumerated.

[kobald]

The Petitioner was unable to allege any standing to bring the Petition.

This is how the scam works -- the government spies on you in secret, and issues a gag order to prevent anyone who knows about the spying from talking about it. That way, if you don't know that you're being spied on, you can't complain (because you don't know that you have cause for complaint); if you do know that you're being spied on, you can't complain (because you'd be Gitmoized for violating the gag order). Win-win for the jackboots; lose-lose for the Constitution.

[OneWingedShark]

Ah, but it says this:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.

And the ACA is binding upon the states, therefore the States must be a party. (And in this case, so are the federal government, and the peoples of the states as well.)

[OneWingedShark]

Your privacy is violated only if you know about it.

See this article.
Or, more humorously, Colbert Savages NSA and Rep. Mike Rogers in 'See No Evil' Segment.

[Mr. Lucky]

Except no state was a party, either as plaintiff or defendant, in the action the Court declined to hear.