So who wants to sue the federal government?

F

fragtagninja

New member
Everyone I am deeply disturbed by the actions taken by our federal government of late. On the eleventh of September 2001 a terrible thing happened. A thing which should never be forgotten. A thing that as horrible as it was will never be a great enough threat to change who we are as a nation, or what we stand for. The U.S. has overcome far greater threats than this. Terrorists can kill us yes and in fairly large numbers, but they cannot bring us down. The government is not who are. If they kill our leaders we will elect more. If they kill our soldiers then for every one they kill two more will join to replace him. We the people are the United States of America. We will never bow to a foreign power. If invaded our invaders will not face just the army, or the marine corp. They will face police, paramedics, firefighters, lawyers, construction workers, businessmen, and gas station attendants. These people will form the most defiant fighting force ever assembled. Because we are Americans and we are free. You cannot conquer us because we do not fight for a ruler. We fight for ourselves, and our families.

I know this because we have done it before. A group of murdering scumbags is nothing when we overcame the largest world power of its day to found this nation. A nation built on the concept that all men are created equal and have certain inalienable rights. Rights that are listed in a legally binding document as being off limits for tampering by congress, the president, or any other governmental official, or agency. These rights are irrevocable and inherent to every last person.

Alas the day has come that our founders most feared. The day our freedoms and liberty hang in the balance. Prominent public figures suggest that the constitution is outdated. Read Michael Moore's thoughts here.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/24/michael_moore_this_must_seem_odd_to_people_in_other_countries_that_we_view_our_constitution_as_if_it_was_written_by_god_himself.html

This is the ideology of slavers. For only slavers would ask that we give up our only protection against being enslaved. Our president has told us not to listen to those who would warn you about tyranny being around the corner while the government he runs works to subvert our rights through illegal wire tapping, suppression of political dissidents, and combing through our internet history and telephone records. Our medical records are sure to be next and without out our privacy how are we to be secure in our effects?


And so my fellow Americans I ask that you join with me to fight this enemy that would take from us everything we hold dear. I ask that you take up this fight not because you want to live free, but because without freedom you cannot truly live.



Our ancestors had no choice, but to go to war. I however still believe that there are some good men and women in our government. I believe we can still bring our country back from the brink of destruction, and that we can still make the system work the way it is supposed to. General George Washington our first president said let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. President Washington also stated that the people are to be the keepers of the constitution. We are the people. Let us also be the wise and honest. Let us keep the constitution and repair the standard.

The first step is here http://randpac.com/
I implore you to sign the online document there and add your name to the list of outraged Americans who are suing the federal government for their egregious abuse of authority and total disregard for basic human dignity.


As an American citizen this lawsuit has a direct effect on your rights. As a verizon wireless customer you have even more at stake, but gun owners stand to lose the most. Without 4th A. protections there is nothing to stop a national gun registry, which is the first step to confiscation.

Let us remind them that they work for us, and hold them accountable for their actions.
 
No one takes Michael Moore seriously anymore...
So don't get too upset by his views, he's as far out on the fringe as liberals get...

That said, I share your concerns.
Particularly of late, I am cautiously heartened by recent events proving the idea of "big government" has not worked...
The issues with the IRS, and more recently the Constitutional issues of privacy and government intrusion SEEM to have crossed party lines.
Additionally, the continued failure of "big government" economic policies are now being shown to be an abject failure, finally the "we inherited this from Bush" excuses are wearing thin on moderate Dems and Independents.

I do have hope, that these issues of privacy and the Federal Government will do more to turn public attention back to the Constitution and the principles of our Founders. I also believe from what I've read from the UK Guardian, that Snowden is about to blow the lid OFF. There is apparently MUCH more to come...this is just the tip of the iceberg, so far.

Traitor, or Whistleblower exposing abuses of the Federal Government?

I do believe the days, and weeks ahead are going to be VERY interesting and the public debate about the size and scope of our government will be had. The upcoming midterm elections will be a good barometer of the future direction of our Republic.
 
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You can't effectively sue the Feds. There are so many loopholes and scams that they use your / our money to fight the suit.

You can however, win in other ways, usually involves negatives, audio clips, or significant embarrassment to obtain a settlement.
 
The point about Moore was just show that their are people who believe in this stuff.

The case is designed to go before the U.S. Supreme Court. Where we can sue the government. Senator Paul is pushing hard and the ACLU is already hard at work to make this happen.

:)
We can win this!
 
The ACLU is bringing their own suit as well.

...all of which is locking the barn door after the horse has escaped.
We don't know the reach or extent of this because it's classified. Even if we win a court battle, we'll have no way of knowing how much of it is really going to be rolled back.

And it's our fault as voters. We forgot things like HTLINGUAL, and we disregarded the Church Committee because we wanted to be kept safe.

I was having a conversation about this with a few folks yesterday, and I mentioned that the President swore an oath to keep us safe from foreign enemies. Not one person in a crowd of educated people realized I was fibbing.
 
fragtagninja,
But what do you win?
If they go after you, you may go to prison. You go after them, they just use your tax dollars to defend against your claims, they "lose", they shift a few people around, make no admission of guilt, pay no fine and virtually no federal employee goes to jail (relatively speaking). If Aldrich Ames hadn't been a mid-high level Fed, he would have been executed based upon the first cover he blew. Major Nidal Hassan, the Ft Hood alleged shooter, won't be as lucky, even though Ames was likely responsible for more deaths.

If however you could win serious $$$$ from the responsible agency's budget with no Indemnification by the Treasury, you might get their attention, or if the acts were illegal, take it out of the agency managements personal bank accounts and throw them in jail.
No I'm not anti government, I just believe everyone ought to play by (and be judged by) the same rules. Guess that's kind of a nieve concept...
 
Unfortunately, it's my opinion that we're at the point where the individuals running these programs simply don't care whether they are constitutional or whose rights they trample. They have the toys and they're going to use them.

There will always be bureaucrats around to rationalize/justify these decisions after the fact, just as we're seeing now.
 
Major Nidal Hassan, the Ft Hood alleged shooter, won't be as lucky
Click to expand...
Wanna bet? He will never do a day's hard time in a real prison. He will be kept in a hospital, segregated from all other prisoners, and treated like a king.

btw...he is still drawing his full military pay and has been since the event.
 
Csmsss
I'll take that bet that that he does hard time if not execution, officially or prison defacto. Meet in the middle, College Station, to collect?
 
Since Maj. Hasan is unlikely to be suing the federal government, his case is off topic for this thread. If you want to continue to discuss this, take it to PM, please.
 
TXAZ if that is how you feel then you should just turn in your guns and be done with it.

Honestly considering the issue what do you have to lose?
If the case fails we all lose our privacy rights anyway so why not try? Cause they might find a reason to put you in prison because you spoke out against them? They might do that anyway.
 
Tom Servo said:
The ACLU is bringing their own suit as well.
Click to expand...
And, interestingly:
NY Times said:
. . . . the A.C.L.U. is a customer of Verizon Business Network Services — the recipient of a leaked secret court order for all its domestic calling records — which it says gives it standing.
Click to expand...
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/aclu-files-suit-over-phone-surveillance-program.html

This is interesting because the ACLU does most of its litigation by way of individuals or members who give it associational standing. In this one, though, the ACLU itself was (or is) a Verizon customer.

I wonder how many member of the American Bar Association are Verizon customers?
 
That is a good question Spats. seeing as Verizon is one of the biggest cell phone companies in the world, and I believe the largest in the U.S. it seems likely that a large portion of the law community would be customers. I would also like to add that before the end of the Bush presidency we started using loopholes in the patriot act for anti drug smuggling operations. A practice that has expanded under the Obama administration.

In addition the ACLU has filed suits against the patriot act in the past with little success. However in this instance we have a clear over reach of authority. The ACLU had tremendous troubles in dealing with a previous suit because much of what the dispute was over was classified. They eventually did get somewhere with the suit from what I am told. This situation however leaves us an opportunity to blow this wide open and see just how far it goes. Prism is only the beginning. There is much more to come, and in the Supreme Court of the United States we can much more easily get subpoenas for this information, and this time if they claim executive privilege it won't matter because their true colors will have shown. Likewise the court has no choice, but to hear us on this matter as long as we hold true to each other. Their is strength in numbers and that is what politicians care about. With enough people outraged over this matter we can overcome. One person suing the federal government stands no chance, but this is a class action suit.
 
I don't think the American Bar Ass'n will get involved, but if they're getting information on attorneys and criminal defendants, then we've also got Sixth Amendment right to counsel issues implicated in addition to everything else
 
Right, but that also falls under privacy in a way, and if we don't have fourth amendment protections on this matter, then when it comes to such issues why would they let us invoke 6th amendment protections? It only takes losing one for the others to crumble like Jenga.

The bar association would be wise to get involved and voice concerns in this matter because it does add another dynamic to the situation even if they are unlikely to do so.

Perhaps the bar association does not need to involve itself, but the 6th amendment implications should be included in the case. Speaking of which I have found myself wondering if this could have 5th A issue riding along as well.
 
Fragtagninja,
The point is you don't take on a giant in their court / area of strength if you want to effect meaningful change, "to win", or otherwise make a relevant point.
The court system is rigged in favor of the government under the current rules, so legit grievances need to invoke public opinion, political and or other legit options.
 
Anytime we file a grievance the odds are stacked against us. This behavior is being encouraged by both sides. Obama promised to end this during his initial campaign. He did the opposite. The only way to stop this is through the court. Not enough people are going to vote out their reps, and senators to get the kind of turn over we need to stop this through legislative action. There is no way the senate is going to allow us to remove Obama from office and that would only solve a small portion of this problem since congress as whole supports this thing. At the end of the day it would change nothing. So what do you suggest as an alternative? And what harm can it do to join the suit?
 
I've deleted some posts. Once the "bullet box" comes into the conversation, we're skirting discussion of the violent overthrow of the government. We're not going any farther down that road.

Further discussion of such, even of the "if not this, then that" variety, will have consequences.
 
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