Wednesday 18 December 2013

dura lex sed lex

No one is particularly heaving a sigh of relief over the off-the-cuff adjudication of one US District Judge's that the mass-surveillance carried out by American intelligence agencies was “significantly likely to be unconstitutional.”

Even without considering the source, who is part of the cadre who orchestrated dreadful scandals like the Iran-Contra Affair (the scheme to supply Iranian kidnappers allied with Lebanon weapons through Israeli channels and use the proceeds to divert arms to the paramilitary group opposed to the democratically-elected government of Nicaragua, all at a premium for the military-industrial complex—the enemy of my enemy is my friend—and to free some hostages by negotiating with terrorists), overturning the mandate that cigarette packages bear graphic warnings since being forced to do so would have infringed on the tobacco-manufacturers' First Amendment rights, and questioning the president's legitimacy at every turn over his citizenship, such opining is inviting blowback. It is a minority—or at least split, opinion among the legal professionals who've commented on the spying scandal—which in any case, only concerns itself with its own jurisdiction, American citizens on American soil and not the rest of the world. De minimis non curat lex. Appealing to a higher court could result in dire consequences in the long-term for the USA.