Can someone please explain why the Constitutionality of the Patriot Act

[tk2kewl]

hasn't been legally challenged in the SCOTUS?

There must be people who have standing, and the ACLU would certainly submit a brief. Did I miss something?

[stopbush]

1. To quote Sgt Hulka: "Gutless. Punk(s)."

Hopefully we've passed the point of challenging the Act being seen as unpatriotic.

[shance]

2. That's a very good question.

Perhaps someone has tried or there is a suit in process?

[indepat]

3. Didn't CJ Rehnquist in effect signal the court would not interfere with

what W had to do to keep us safe? That's maybe a tad facetious, but that's the gist of what I recall the CJ saying: my take is the Supremes won't interfere with whatever this Administration does or wants to do, damn the Constitution, but there I go being hypercritical again.

[tk2kewl]

5. CJ is only one person.

And that position is put to the test by pushing the issue. Make them turn a case away, or uphold the "Act"

[foo_bar]

4. it's hard to make a test case without an attorney

Reality: The DOJ imprisoned hundreds of immigrants who had not committed any crime, many of them for months on end, housed many of them with hardened criminals, often effectively denied them access to their families and to counsel, and refused to tell the public who had been imprisoned. Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the DOJ launched a nationwide investigation that led to the arrest, detention, and deportation of hundreds of Muslim men of Middle Eastern, South Asian and Northern African descent. Almost all of those arrested and imprisoned were accused only of routine immigration violations. Of the hundreds swept up, fewer than a handful were charged with criminal offenses that could fairly be characterized as terrorism-related.Those detained were often housed in conditions usually reserved for the most violent and dangerous criminals. Some were held in solitary confinement for weeks, even months. They were denied access to their families. They were denied access to counsel. Some were subjected to hate speech by prison guards. Others were physically beaten. According to a report written by the DOJ’s own Inspector General, the DOJ “frequently . . . told people who inquired about a specific September 11 detainee that the detainee was not imprisoned when, in fact, the opposite was true.”

http://www.aclu.org/Files/getFile.cfm?id=13375

[tk2kewl]

6. but there are people who eventually got out

don't they seek counsel then? wouldn't someone like the ACLU who gives a shit about the Constitution seek them out?

[foo_bar]

7. here we go

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The American Civil Liberties Union Wednesday filed the first lawsuit against the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism law passed after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The lawsuit claims one section of the law authorizing searches of records, including those of businesses, libraries and bookstores, is unconstitutional.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/07/30/patriot.act/

[Geoff R. Casavant]

8. Can't get to SCOTUS

without an appeal, which requires a conviction. PATRIOT is not a law in an of itself, but rather a series of amendments to a host of other laws dealing with police and criminal procedure. In order for the issue to get before SCOTUS, you would need someone to be convicted based on evidence gathered under PATRIOT that could not have been gathered in the absence of PATRIOT. Since there have been very few such convictions, and most have been matters not dealing with nat'l security, it's possible the convictions would have been secured even under the old laws. In that case, no appeals court would ever reach the constitutionality issue.

Just my two cents.