"I'm In Charge -- And I'm Clueless"
That's basically what the Secretary of Homeland Security said about the Fourth Amendment and whether he thinks the government can bulk-collect your personal data without a warrant.
Secretary Jeh Johnson's exact words in response to Rand Paul's grilling on that subject?
"That is beyond my competence as the Secretary of Homeland Security to answer in any intelligent legal way." - Secretary Jeh Johnson
The video is seven-some minutes but the exchange is right at the beginning.
Just label every search, "administrative", and watch people support everything they do.
SAFETY!
You can have it, if you can just assign it to someone ELSE far enough away!
Radwaste at May 1, 2015 6:35 AM
Exactly, Rad. This label of "administrative" search on TSA's security puppet show does nothing to make it constitutional vis a vis our right that there's probable cause before we are searched.
Amy Alkon at May 1, 2015 6:37 AM
Because you want the guy who heads the department that has the legal authority to search your house, search your person, detain you, arrest you, and even shoot you to plead ignorance about Constitutional limitations on that authority.
What can you expect? Our recent Attorneys General haven't been much better.
Eric Holder claimed that even if KSM was acquitted in a civilian trial, the Justice Department wouldn't have to release him (please look up "acquitted" Eric); sold guns to drug gangs and pleaded ignorance when those guns turn up on American streets.
Alberto Gonzales got confused about habeas corpus, authorized "enhanced interrogation" techniques (despite our prosecuting Japanese officials after World War II for war crimes for using the same techniques), and authorized warrantless wiretaps of US citizens.
Janet Reno borrowed tanks from the Texas National Guard so the FBI could destroy a religious commune because it was weird and the unmarried childless Attorney General had an obsessive need to be seen as a savior of children; then ordered Elian Gonzales sent back to Cuba at gunpoint.
Perhaps we need to make it a requirement that future Justice Department officials actually read the Constitution. Yes, Loretta, I'm looking at you.
Conan the Grammarian at May 1, 2015 9:39 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeh_Johnson
Jeh Charles Johnson (born September 11, 1957)[1] is an American civil and criminal trial lawyer, and the current United States Secretary of Homeland Security. He was the General Counsel of the Department of Defense from 2009 to 2012 during the first Obama Administration. Johnson is a graduate of Morehouse College (B.A.) and Columbia Law School (J.D.),
Johnson served as Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1989 to 1991. From 1998 to 2001, he was General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force under President Bill Clinton.[3] Prior to his appointment as General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Johnson was a partner at the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, in which he was the first African American elected partner and to which he returned after his four years at the Defense Department.[4] He was elected a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2004.[3]
On January 8, 2009, he was named by President Barack Obama to be General Counsel for the Defense Department
Federal prosecutor[edit]
Johnson began his legal career at Paul, Weiss in the mid-1980s. In 1989 he left to serve as an assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, a position he held until 1991. In that position, Johnson prosecuted public corruption cases.
Air Force General Counsel[edit]
Johnson returned to Paul, Weiss in 1992 and was elected partner at the firm in 1994. In 1998, Johnson was appointed General Counsel of the Air Force by President Bill Clinton after confirmation by the U.S. Senate. As General Counsel, Johnson was the senior legal official in the Air Force and Governor of Wake Island, in the Pacific Ocean
General Counsel of the Department of Defense[edit]
Johnson swears in Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense.
On January 8, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced Johnson's nomination as Department of Defense General Counsel.[16] On February 9, 2009, he was confirmed by the Senate.[17]
As General Counsel of the Defense Department, Johnson was a major player in certain key priorities of the Obama Administration, and he is considered one of the legal architects of the U.S. military's current counterterrorism policies
jerry at May 1, 2015 11:08 AM
"despite our prosecuting Japanese officials after World War II for war crimes for using the same techniques), "
I'm calling bullshit on this. Japanese war crimes were of the live vivisection, biological warfare, wholesale slaughter type, and MacArthur was remarkably lenient, and pardoned all but the worst offenders in the name of achieving a lasting peace.
Isab at May 1, 2015 11:38 AM
Isab, you're right, mostly.
We included waterboarding in the list of war crimes, but the actual prosecutions were for far more heinous acts than that.
I included Gonzales more for his difficulty with habeas corpus and warrantless wiretaps; mostly to keep from being accused of singling out Democrat AGs. The memo sanctioning enhanced interrogation techniques was actually better thought out and far more nuanced than his critics argue, but it still disturbs me that an AG of the US can sanction physical acts of duress in an interrogation.
To be fair to Gonzales, I don't know if he was the Attorney General when he wrote the memo and the question it answered was about such techniques violating the Geneva Conventions, not the US Constitution.
Holder and Reno were the two worst Attorneys General in modern history - and they achieved that against some pretty stiff competition. Reno wins the award (in my book) because I actually agree with Holder on limiting the ability of police forces to profit from confiscations.
Conan the Grammarian at May 1, 2015 12:21 PM
Reno were the two worst Attorneys General in modern history - and they achieved that against some pretty stiff competition. Reno wins the award (in my book) because I actually agree with Holder on limiting the ability of police forces to profit from confiscations.
Posted by: Conan the Grammarian at May 1, 2015 12:21 PM
Agreed. But in evaluating attorney Generals, Holder has been perfectly willing to let the IRS and the NSA get away with running rough shod over American citizens and all your rights.
What he has done has been far more nefarious than what he believes.
Isab at May 1, 2015 12:37 PM
It is a tough tossup Conan. I dislike Holder more, but I could certainly be persuaded either way.
Ben at May 1, 2015 12:52 PM
Jerry, thanks for the bio of Jeh Johnson. Do you have any information on where he is licensed to practice law? I'd suggest that if it includes your state, writing to the bar association to ask how a person who professes ignorance of the very basis of our laws could hold a law license. Or in the case of the one state where I know he was licenced, New York, how such a person could have ever a member of the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeh_Johnson#Private_practice) Not that I expect any response that indicates that they recognize the problem with a lawyer being ignorant of the law - but IMO they are thereby providing proof that the legal profession is incompetent at regulating itself.
markm at May 1, 2015 4:20 PM
True. I might be letting him off the hook somewhat for those - probably because I think the IRS and the NSA bear the majority of the blame for their own actions; and the president for not reining them in. However, I can see the argument that the Justice Department has failed in its duty to enforce the law and protect the citizenry from government malfeasance.
And, as you point out, Holder's policy actions (or lack of actions) have long-term implications that Reno's straight-up incompetence didn't.
The entire government has been creeping toward more authoritarianism over the last several decades - beyond, possibly, the ability of one department to stop it, even if it was so inclined. And we the people have been idly sitting by distracted by the bread and circuses. More people can name all the Kardashians than can name one Supreme Court justice.
Conan the Grammarian at May 1, 2015 5:10 PM
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