Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Who Violated the Oath of Office Yesterday?

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Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives considered whether to terminate the National Security Agency’s (NSA) unconstitutional collection and analysis of innocent Americans’ phone records. Representative Justin Amash (R-MI 3rd) introduced an amendment to a defense appropriations bill which would have de-funded the NSA’s illegal program. The bill would not have affected legitimate, targeted national security search warrants or wiretapping.

The Amash amendment failed by a narrow 205-217 vote. President Barack Obama (D) and his administration went into a frenzy in the lead-up to the vote, joined by both Republican and Democratic congressional leaders, urging members to vote against it.

Ninety-four Republicans and one hundred eleven Democrats voted in favor of the amendment and, by extension, the Fourth Amendment. One hundred thirty-four Republicans and eighty-three Democrats voted instead to continue allowing the shredding of the Bill of Rights.

I shouldn’t have to remind our esteemed representatives that they have each sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Two hundred and five members of House of Representatives—including my own representative, Frank Wolf (R-VA 10th)—violated that oath yesterday. In a sane world, they would be impeached and removed from office. In this world, the best we can hope for is that enough voters remember this and send these men and women packing in 2014. They have violated our trust, and do not deserve to hold high office.

Read on for a list of our anti-liberty representatives. See if yours is on the list and, if they are, let them know what you think of their betrayal.

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Governor McDonnell: Explain Yourself

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Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) is now in the midst of a full-on corruption scandal. Many political scandals are depressingly predictable, but I have to admit that this one took me by surprise. McDonnell’s political career—as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, then as our attorney general, and now as our governor—had been unblemished by serious controversy. He won relatively strong Off on a Tangent endorsements when he ran for attorney general in 2005, and again when he ran for governor in 2009.

McDonnell has governed largely as I expected him to, charting a center-right course of fiscal responsibility and respect for human rights and civil liberties. I have disagreed with him from time-to-time, particularly when it comes to his strong (but misguided) support for privately-operated toll roads, but overall I have been satisfied with his performance.

Among other promises, then-Attorney General McDonnell promised that, if we made him governor, he would work to eliminate fraud and abuse in our state government and improve transparency. I mentioned these promises in my endorsement. Although he has made some improvements along these lines in how the government bureaucracy of the Commonwealth of Virginia operates, he apparently doesn’t think that they should apply to himself.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now investigating McDonnell because he and his family allegedly received over $145,000 in gifts—some unreported—from Jonnie R. Williams Sr., an executive at Star Scientific, possibly in return for some unspecified preferential treatment. Some of these gifts were made to Maureen McDonnell, the governor’s wife, which shielded them from the normal reporting of political donations.

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Meet Nena the Dog

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About two weeks ago, Melissa and I dropped by the Petsmart store in Sterling, Virginia, to see what dogs the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation had available for adoption. We met a seven month old chihuahua/terrier mix named Sophia, and she seemed like a good fit, but Melissa wimped out and we went home to think about it.

Within a couple of days, Melissa and decided that she really did want to make Sophia part of the family . . . so she contacted the foundation and asked them to bring Sophia to the Friday adoption event at the Petsmart in Fair Lakes. We met up with her again there, filled out some paperwork, paid a fee, and went home with a dog.

Over the last week we’ve been getting to know her (and letting her get to know us). We decided to change her name to Nena, which is a Spanish term of endearment that roughly means ‘little girl.’ This reflects her heritage as a rescue from Puerto Rico, where there are apparently tons of semi-wild chihuahua/terrier mixes running around.

She is a fast learner, and she’s already got house-training down (with only a couple of accidents at the beginning). She is great on walks around the neighborhood, friendly with the neighbors (both human and canine), and she even gets along pretty well with the cats. Nena and Mei Mei have pretty much worked out an arrangement.

Vincent is still coming around, which is being complicated by the fact that he injured some of his front toes with (I think) an extra-high jump down from the top of the kitchen cabinets. We took him to the emergency vet (on the Fourth of July) and are treating him with pain medication and lots of love. In another week or so we are hoping he will be good as new.

Edward Snowden Isn’t a Criminal

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In 2006, it came to light that the National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting phone records. At the time, I found this unobjectionable because of a key nuance: those records were being volunteered to the NSA by the phone companies. The records belong to the companies, and they may use them however they like (as long as they don’t violate the terms of service and privacy policies they have in-place with their customers). This was a completely voluntary effort, and some companies—like Qwest—decided not to share their records with the government. We may like or dislike the NSA’s efforts, and we might have wished our phone company hadn’t cooperated with them, but no laws were being broken.

Around the same time, we also found out that President George W. Bush’s (R) administration was engaging in limited warrantless wiretapping of phone calls to and from some overseas numbers. Because this program dealt only with international calls, it fell squarely within the normal range of presidential war powers, and was also perfectly legal. Calls with both ends in the United States, on the other hand, could only be tapped with a warrant except in truly extraordinary cases.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with the assistance of tons of related case-law, demarcates clear lines between legal and illegal forms of electronic espionage and searches. The collection of data from businesses that voluntarily provide it falls on the legal side. The monitoring of phone calls to enemies across our borders in a time of war also falls on the legal side. The monitoring of phone calls and other communications after obtaining a warrant is also perfectly legal. But our government has played fast-and-loose with these lines before, and, thanks to Edward Snowden, we know they are still doing it today.

Snowden, formerly a low-level government contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton, publicly revealed the existence of an NSA espionage program that collects essentially all phone records in the United States under order of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). This sounds very similar to the program that was revealed in 2006, and is probably related, but now the NSA is compelling companies to provide the information whether they want to or not. Now it’s not voluntary cooperation, but a full-on search and seizure. That is where it crossed the line from a legal (if questionable) program to one that is blatantly, absolutely unconstitutional.

Read more . . .

Supreme Court Strikes Part of DOMA

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Seal of the Supreme Court
Seal of the Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court has voted 5-4 to strike down a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that prohibited legally married homosexual couples from receiving federal marriage benefits. United States v. Windsor was brought by Edith Windsor, who was denied federal estate tax exemption when her partner—legally recognized as her spouse in the State of New York—died in 2009. According to this ruling, the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause prohibit the federal government from discriminating between marriages, including same-sex marriages, legally conferred by the states.

It appears at this time that the ruling is narrowly crafted and will not have any direct, immediate impact on states that do not recognize same-sex marriage. It does, however, lay a groundwork for a number of future legal challenges. In particular, the ruling does not directly address federal recognition of same-sex couples who are legally married in one state, then move to a state that does not recognize that marriage. The ruling also side-steps numerous Full Faith and Credit clause issues, and leaves unanswered the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause should require all states to recognize same-sex marriages.

The majority opinion in United States v. Windsor was issued by Justice Anthony Kennedy joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Separate dissenting opinions were issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito. Thomas also joined, in part, with the dissent written by Alito. Roberts joined, in part, with the dissent by Scalia and Thomas.

The court also separately dismissed Hollingsworth v. Perry by a 5-4 vote. In this case, supporters of California’s Proposition Eight—a voter initiative that outlawed the recognition of same-sex marriage in the state—were found to lack necessary standing to challenge a state court ruling that overturned the law. The effect is that same-sex marriages will continue to be legally recognized in California, even though the voters there acted through referendum to prohibit them.

The majority opinion in Hollingsworth v. Perry was issued by Roberts and joined by Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. A dissenting opinion was issued by Kennedy joined by Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.