Thoughts on the Supreme Court's gov't whistleblower ruling

The ruling was 5-4 against the 1st Amendment prohibiting retaliation against government employees for exposing wrongdoing — the implications of such being obvious:

The Supreme Court today narrowed the First Amendment protections for public employees who reveal perceived wrongdoing they happen to observe in the course of doing their jobs.

The decision enhances the ability of governments at all levels to punish employees for speaking out, shielding officials in many instances from lawsuits for violating the right to free speech.[…]

The case was closely watched by governments across the country as well as public employee unions, who feared today’s outcome.

In a 5-4 opinion , Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the courts should not be displacing “managerial discretion” over the behavior of employees by intruding in decisions that are wholly related to the workplace. “Employers have heightened interests in controlling speech made by an employee in his or her professional capacity.

“Official communications,” he said, “have official consequences. . . .”

Joining Kennedy were Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito.

No suprise as to who signed on. As to the reasoning about the Court intervening in “managerial discretion”, as Kennedy puts it, it sounds — to me at least — like it contradicts itself when you consider what ruling the other direction would’ve meant. Simply because a lawsuit is threatened does not mean it will succeed, or even that it will be taken seriously, there are mechanisms in place inherently in the legal system that serve to seperate reasonable complaints from vindictive ones. Like all other such processes, it doesn’t work perfectly but it’s there. The majority ruling here is not a measure of judicial restraint, as these aren’t outside of the usual range of judicial issues anyway.

Also, I find the idea that “managerial discretion” applies to public service at all to be ridiculous on its face. The end being reached for here is obviously a superficial measure of “efficiency”, when the true cause of inefficiency is not that gov’t employees can tell on their bosses but rather the tendency of the bosses to screw up the process so often in the first place. The doctrine amounts to buck-passing, period.

That said, look at the particular case. JURIST gives detail:

The US Supreme Court on Monday held that First Amendment protections do not extend to government employees for comments made while performing their official duties, even when the employee is acting to expose alleged government wrongdoing.

In a 5-4 decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Court overturned a Ninth Circuit ruling which had extended free speech protections to a memorandum written by an employee in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office in which he argued that a sheriff lied in a search warrant affidavit, saying the memorandum should be protected because it was a matter of public concern.

The employee, Ceballos, claimed he was retaliated against after he testified for the defense and submitted the memorandum he had written to the deputy District Attorney outlining the sheriff’s misrepresentations. As a defense to the retaliation lawsuit, Ceballos’ employers argued that the memorandum should not be entitled First Amendment protections because it was written in Ceballos’ job-related capacity and not as his capacity as a citizen.

I say this not as an expert, but as it comes from my own opinion: staying on within the government office in question when they’re acting as if they’re complicit in the error you’re tyring to point out sounds like an unnecessary limit to one’s course of action. Is the job really worth that much?

I’d quit, THEN sue.

They give anybody an op-ed column these days…

Here was some idiot’s view on the raid on William Jefferson’s congressional office:

…the FBI raid was overly aggressive. The same result could probably have been achieved with a properly executed court order. But there is conflicting precedent about how much legislative-branch protection the Constitution provides from a legitimate criminal investigation.

The current matter hopefully will get to the Supreme Court quickly. Some historians are saying it is the first raid of a representative’s quarters in 219 years. It could be the last. Although it’s hard to work up much sympathy for a “culture of corruption” Congress, the need to keep men in black from breaking into the offices is almost a no-brainer in any high-school civics class. (emphasis mine)

A search warrant doesn’t count anymore?

The feds must need some super special “begging warrant” to go after congressmen, where instead of doing an actual search they just send someone to kneel outside of the office & say “PLEEEEEEEASE let us investigate!!”

The Trojan Horse in the immigration "issue"

Unsurprisingly, “If only we could track people even more…” is a common theme to this immigration garbage:

Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg thrust himself into the national immigration debate Wednesday, advocating a plan that would establish a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers.

And this is from someone who actually opposes the more reactionary parts of proposed immigration “reform”!

Notice how whenever there’s a new “them” pointed at to be fashionably hated, the political response is to further restrict “us”?

Keep it simple

this a few moments ago:

Senior executives at Fannie Mae manipulated accounting to collect millions in “maximum, undeserved bonuses” and deceive investors, a federal report charged Tuesday. The government-sponsored mortgage company was fined $400 million. (emphasis mine)

[sarcasm]Whu? A company so heavily supported by the government that it’s considered a defacto arm of it, cooking the books? Shocking![/sarcasm]

The rest of the article might as well not exist. Once you know it’s government-sponsored, you know enough…

tags: US+politics, Fannie+Mae, mortgage, accounting, fraud]]>

NOW they're concerned?

investigating one of their own:

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Tuesday that the FBI and the Justice Department “took the wrong path” when they searched a Democratic congressman’s office this weekend as part of an anti-corruption probe. “We understand that they want to support and pursue the process that the Justice Department is trying to pursue,” Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, said. “But there’s ways to do it, and my opinion is that they took the wrong path.”

Over the weekend, The FBI searched the Washington home and office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-Louisiana, and found $90,000 of allegedly ill-gotten funds in the freezer of his home, according to an affidavit. […] Leaders from both both parties and both houses of Congress have expressed concern about the search.

On Monday, both Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Hastert said they were “very concerned” about the search, which was conducted under a warrant issued by a federal judge. (emphasis mine)

At least he had the apparent luxury of them getting a warrant before searching. That they’re having issues with this is an utter slap in the face & should serve as a reminder that these fools represent no one but themselves. Regular people get nailed to the wall for less every DAY, you see them addressing that? Nope.

What’s their excuse? “Hey! That’s uncharted territory! We should be cautious & skeptical of such things!”

Hastert said the search was the first time a lawmaker’s office had been searched in U.S. history. “Nothing I have learned in the last 48 hours leads me to believe that there was any necessity to change the precedent established over those 219 years,” Hastert said on Monday.

Well everything I’ve learned ever since I started paying attention to politics leads me to believe that the reason you’re barking about it is because if not for the rampant double standards we have when it comes to law & political power most of our current congressmen — you included — would be in prison.

Criminals, congressmen, same thing…

Food for thought Re: the "border"

One could say about much of the screaming over immigration from both “sides” that it’s “childish”.  Well, WaPo gives reason to retire that term as an insult:

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico: One hard kick launched the soccer ball around the rusted edge of the metal fence, down the sloping grade into a flat expanse of grass. Kids, giggling and jostling, bounded past the end of the fence line. Out of Mexico. Into the United States. No big deal.

It goes on from there into an examination of how cultures have blended along the border to the point where it’s really silly to call it one. The whole thing says a lot, but especially striking is that image of kids crossing into the US to go get a soccer ball: without the State, without politics, there are no borders, there are just vague zones where cultures blend in a gradient, much like the color table in Photoshop or somethin’. This — the “go too far this way and you’re commiting a crime”, the need for permission to travel — is artificial.

Those children don’t care that they’re crossing into another country because the idea itself is learned, particularly from elites. The children didn’t create the warfare-welfare state, the children didn’t bring force into the equation on so much of modern life, the children didn’t create this situation where simply by crossing a line drawn in the sand you’re considered to be undermining a whole society — a gross exaggeration, thanks to the confusion of a people with the government it happens to have.

No. The grownups screwed up this one.

The grownups threw arbitrary limits on immigration. The grownups meddled with the culture of others for power & unearned gain.

The grownups constructed a state system that is threatening to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

For now, we have to figure out how to address the immediate result. We have to figure out how to simultaneously correct the error of forcing people underground while preventing the exploitation of our mess for the purpose of doing us harm. In the long run though, this cannot hold. Call the current debate whatever else you want to — “ignorant”, “small-minded”, “hypocritical” — but leave the kids out of it.

From zero to gay-bash in 3.6 seconds…

Right on cue:

A Senate committee approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage Thursday, after a shouting match that ended when one Democrat strode out and the Republican chairman bid him “good riddance.”

“I don’t need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., shouted after Sen. Russ Feingold declared his opposition to the amendment, his affinity for the Constitution and his intention to leave the meeting.[…]

Amid increasing partisan tension over President Bush’s judicial nominees and domestic wiretapping, the panel voted along party lines to send the constitutional amendment — which would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages — to the full Senate, where it stands little chance of passing.

Immigration isn’t working as a wedge issue because Bush wants us to take after France on that one & the party is split otherwise, so they go for playing the anti-gay card. Predictable. Give it a few days & they’ll go back to beating the war drums for Iran, these things are seemingly on an endless loop…

tags: US+politics, US+Senate, Arlen+Specter, Russ+Feingold, gay+marriage, homophobia, US+Constitution]]>

"I'll take 'Fascism' for $1000, Alex…"

“A citizen was putting up signs urging the head of state to resign, when she was approached by police, who asked to see her ID.  Upon refusing, she was assaulted, threatened with death, cuffed to a hospital bed & given an unknown substance in an IV, then thrown into the psychiatric ward of a local jail.”

*BZZZZ*

“What is the United States of America?”

“Correct! And with that, B has taken the lead…”

Props.

Who they're REALLY tracking…

they spell “terrorist” R-E-P-O-R-T-E-R:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

I can read between the lines here: They were, and that was much of the actual point. Looking at phone records is a hit-or-miss way of analyzing terror network ties, but it’s a great way of finding out who’s blowing the whistle when the US government does something it’s not supposed to.

BTW: If you want a laugh and/or a reminder of just how crazy the few people are that still buy this adminstration’s BS, take a look at the comments on their entry. Wherever there are people that honestly think ABC News is “communist scum”, “seditionist”, and “against the USA”, I hope to never to be there for so much as a speeding ticket.

***Updated 051506 @ 11:15 PM EST***

The records ABC is referring to have been revealed to have come not from the NSA program but from the FBI using a “national Security Letter”. Different case — and even worse. NSLs are written by the feds themselves, unlike a warrant, & by law a phone company that gets one can neither refuse to provide records nor admit to the parties involved that they’ve been handed over.

“National Security Letter”. Maybe it’s just me being looney, but I don’t see how it threatens national security to reveal that the US uses torture. I’d think if one were to take their mind to that dark area where anything goes & anything works they’d want The Black Hats to know they’re going to be tortured should they ever be caught, so as to let ’em know “we mean business” or whatever the cliche is today. If we’re to assume the hawks are correct & there’s gains from it, then why not just say straight out “we will torture you”?

tags: US+politics, NSA, FBI, CIA, ABC+News, warrantless+surveillance, anonymous+sources]]>

Republicans for a Planned Economy

*sigh*….another day in interest group hell

In a big win for U.S. ethanol producers, House Majority Leader John Boehner said on Monday he will not push legislation to reduce the U.S. tariff on ethanol imports.

U.S. oil refiners are scrambling to secure ethanol supplies to mix with gasoline this summer as they switch from using the water-polluting fuel additive MTBE. But the Energy Department has warned that U.S. ethanol supplies will fall short and refiners will need to rely on more imports.

Boehner, who is from Ohio, said last week that the United States was not producing enough ethanol to meet demand and that a temporary reduction in the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff could help boost available supplies and lower gasoline prices. When asked if there were enough votes in both the House and Senate to approve legislation lifting the ethanol tariff, Boehner told reporters: “I think it’s possible.”

However, House Speaker Dennis Hastert from the big ethanol-producing state of Illinois said later that he did not believe there was “an economic plus” in lifting the ethanol tariff “right now.” (emphasis mine)

Lemme get this straight: through a change in regulations, the government forced refiners to use ethanol as a substitute additive. That additive, which they would not have gotten if not for the new rule, is in short supply domestically. Yet the tariff on imported ethanol stays because one of the most powerful politicans here, coincidentally representing ethanol producers, thinks there’s no “economic plus”.

Gee, talk about painting yourself into a corner…

As people who actually care about these kind of things know, protectionist measures tend to function as a hidden tax. They artificially increase the price of foreign goods, & the extra cost, whether directly from the tariff itself or indirectly from the taxes on the higher price domestic competitors can get away with charging, ends up in the pockets of the government. So, with that in mind, I’d like any Republicans out there to answer a question: what’s the difference between Hastert’s arguement against cutting or eliminating the ethanol import tariff & what has been the Democratic Party’s arguement against cutting taxes elsewhere?

tags: US+politics, ethanol, energy+policy, trade+policy, protectionism, economics, gas+prices, Dennis+Hastert, John+Boehner, US+congress]]>