The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

D@mn liberal SCOTUS greenies upholding EPA ruling.....

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...140.html?hp=r2

Pinko Roberts even went along.

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Probably because once you start putting in place changing rules, there's nothing to stop the current party in power from continuing to change the rules. The idea isn't to make it too difficult to get an ID, which people will do eventually given enough time. The idea is to confuse voters into thinking they'll be standing in line for an hour, only to find out whatever ID they did get is no longer valid. Yes, voters should be able to sort through all that, but on the flip side, should they have to? Voting is fundamental to our democracy. I don't like, and people don't like, seeing one party gaming the system. I believe it was the GOP House Speaker in PA saying he just threw the election to Romney (this in a state Mittens lost by over 300,000 votes) so it looks like voter suppression was the plan on a grand scale. Given Obama's approx 3M vote total in the state, the GOP was trying to cause over 10% of his voters to stay home or be denied the ability to vote purely through voter ID shennanigans. That's something I'd expect to occur in Afghanistan, not in the United States.

I guess I look at it like voting is a privilege. If you're not well enough informed to even figure out what the rules are to vote (they aren't that hard, and they are obviously well-publicized), then you probably aren't well enough informed to even be voting, so I don't see any great loss to democracy when you miss out.

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I guess I look at it like voting is a privilege. If you're not well enough informed to even figure out what the rules are to vote (they aren't that hard, and they are obviously well-publicized), then you probably aren't well enough informed to even be voting, so I don't see any great loss to democracy when you miss out.

Knowing what the rules are and being able to reasonably comply with those rules are two separate questions, and I don't think you're giving that much thought/weight in your argument.

As for being informed enough to vote...that's a completely different question. For most positions, my guess is that the majority of voters would not be informed enough to vote under your standard. However, as a country we've decided that isn't what is important (for better or for worse).

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I guess I look at it like voting is a privilege. If you're not well enough informed to even figure out what the rules are to vote (they aren't that hard, and they are obviously well-publicized), then you probably aren't well enough informed to even be voting, so I don't see any great loss to democracy when you miss out.

Voters deserve the right to not be subject to jumping through all kinds of hoops to get to be able to cast a ballot. Its not a matter of being well informed enough. Its if people keep changing the rules on you, at what point does this stop being a fair and reasonable exercise of legislative power? Well publicized isn't the issue, although I'm not 100% sure that rules changes always are. Am I opposed to photo ID's? No, not at all. But beyond that, you can't just enact whatever you please and then tell people either deal with it or else you didn't want to vote bad enough. Now there's been several proposals for voters to produce birth certificates as well (?). What's next, proposals that your mother has to give sworn testimony that you are who you say you are?

As you've already correctly mentioned, this effort is stupid if its goal is to keep voting down. For every person you do manage to deny, you're going to motivate someone who may have been indifferent before but will now be hell bent to stick it to you come Election Day. However, its the voters who needlessly have to deal with this crap that I'm thinking of, like those Philly residents waiting for 2 hours at a state agency (the DMV) which clearly couldn't handle what they were being asked to do (produce voter ID's). Gee, who couldn't have seen that coming??

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I just find it funny people are willing to take anecdotal evidence of voter suppression as the gospel, but find anecdotal evidence of voter fraud untrustworthy.

IMHO, both are a load of hooey. I don't believe there is voter fraud going on, or that requiring some sort of ID would prevent it anyway. Nor do I believe there is voter suppression going on. I think that if you dig into the anecdotes on each side, ask questions to find out what really happened, you will find what most of us suspect. They are just a bunch of stories fabricated for political purposes.

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I just find it funny people are willing to take anecdotal evidence of voter suppression as the gospel, but find anecdotal evidence of voter fraud untrustworthy.

IMHO, both are a load of hooey. I don't believe there is voter fraud going on, or that requiring some sort of ID would prevent it anyway. Nor do I believe there is voter suppression going on. I think that if you dig into the anecdotes on each side, ask questions to find out what really happened, you will find what most of us suspect. They are just a bunch of stories fabricated for political purposes.

I agree completely that this is a political issue (and why I thought this debate should probably be going on in one of the political threads). If the sides were switched, Democrats would be harping for voter ID laws based on insufficient evidence of voter fraud, and Republicans would be bringing up random stories about people being forced endless amounts of time to vote.

To me, there are two viable solutions:
1) Keep voting the way it is sans unreasonable voting ID laws; or
2) Implement reasonable voting ID laws (see my minimum criteria from previous post for what I consider "reasonable")

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I just find it funny people are willing to take anecdotal evidence of voter suppression as the gospel, but find anecdotal evidence of voter fraud untrustworthy.

IMHO, both are a load of hooey. I don't believe there is voter fraud going on, or that requiring some sort of ID would prevent it anyway. Nor do I believe there is voter suppression going on. I think that if you dig into the anecdotes on each side, ask questions to find out what really happened, you will find what most of us suspect. They are just a bunch of stories fabricated for political purposes.

An argument I don't believe anybody is making out here.

[unofan]

I just find it funny people are willing to take anecdotal evidence of voter suppression as the gospel, but find anecdotal evidence of voter fraud untrustworthy.

IMHO, both are a load of hooey. I don't believe there is voter fraud going on, or that requiring some sort of ID would prevent it anyway. Nor do I believe there is voter suppression going on. I think that if you dig into the anecdotes on each side, ask questions to find out what really happened, you will find what most of us suspect. They are just a bunch of stories fabricated for political purposes.

If the goal is accurate elections, then the test for any new law respecting the right to vote should be simple. Does it prevent more fraudulent votes from being made than it discourages legitimate voters from casting? Since voting is a fundamental right, the burden is on the party pushing for the new measure to show that this is the case.

If it can't meet that simple test, then the law is pointless since it makes the results worse (ie who cares about those 4 fraudulent votes if you're keeping 100 actual voters from voting - the net result is negative).

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

The case on cell phone searches will be interesting.

Police who stop a person on (legitimate) suspicion of a crime currently are allowed to search suspects' pockets without a warrant. If there is an appointment book in the pocket, they can open it and flip through it without a warrant.

What if the person has a cell phone? are they allowed to look at who just called? read text messages? what if it's a smartphone and they have stuff stored on it?

two different courts have reached opposite conclusions and so SCOTUS is going to hear the case.

Law-enforcement advocates argue phones are similar to other personal effects found on someone at the time of arrest: Police can go through photos, address books and similar materials found on a person without obtaining a warrant, under Supreme Court precedents intended to protect officers' safety and prevent destruction of evidence.

The capacity of smartphones only expands the justification for police to search them without warrants, law-enforcement advocates say. They also warn smartphones potentially could be programmed to set off explosives, summon accomplices or automatically erase data, including potential evidence—justifying a warrant exception relating to officer safety and preserving evidence at the time of arrest.

"Cellphones are not only capable of providing valuable evidence of a criminal offense, but are also often an instrumentality of a crime," said a court brief by Arizona and 14 other states.

Defense lawyers, meanwhile, have argued the warrant exceptions don't apply to cellphones, which are closer to an archive of an individual's life than the pocket litter police routinely go through when they take someone into custody.

Factual distinctions between the two cases before the high court suggest the justices might be interested in setting different rules depending on whether the phone is in active use during the investigation.

In the San Diego case, police in 2009 pulled over David Riley for expired tags, discovered he had been driving on a suspended license and found handguns stashed in the engine compartment. At the police station they looked at his phone and found photographs and text messages relating to alleged gang affiliation. A state appeals court, citing a 2011 California Supreme Court ruling, upheld the warrantless cellphone search.

The Boston case involves the 2007 arrest of Brima Wurie for allegedly selling crack cocaine. At the police station, one of Mr. Wurie's phones rang, and police traced the number to an address in South Boston, where they found drugs, a gun and ammunition. Mr. Wurie was sentenced to nearly 22 years in federal prison for distributing crack cocaine and other charges. But the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston found the cellphone search unconstitutional and threw out the conviction.

I suppose that some might say that the police should impound the cell phone without looking at it and then apply for a warrant.....

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

The case on cell phone searches will be interesting.

Police who stop a person on (legitimate) suspicion of a crime currently are allowed to search suspects' pockets without a warrant. If there is an appointment book in the pocket, they can open it and flip through it without a warrant.

What if the person has a cell phone? are they allowed to look at who just called? read text messages? what if it's a smartphone and they have stuff stored on it?

two different courts have reached opposite conclusions and so SCOTUS is going to hear the case.



I suppose that some might say that the police should impound the cell phone without looking at it and then apply for a warrant.....

F*k that noise. Police should get a warrant to open my phone. Even the appointment book seems uber-sketchy to me.

[LynahFan]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

F*k that noise. Police should get a warrant to open my phone. Even the appointment book seems uber-sketchy to me.

Especially considering that much of the data you have ACCESS to from someone's phone is not actually stored ON the phone. If I had a slip of paper in my pocket with my Google username and password on it, does that give them the right to search my Google account?

Completely agree with you here - they should have to get a warrant.

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

F*k that noise. Police should get a warrant to open my phone. Even the appointment book seems uber-sketchy to me.

And it's yet another reason to password protect your phone. Yes, that can be hacked, but they certainly can't do it on site.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Especially considering that much of the data you have ACCESS to from someone's phone is not actually stored ON the phone. If I had a slip of paper in my pocket with my Google username and password on it, does that give them the right to search my Google account?

Completely agree with you here - they should have to get a warrant.

I didn't even consider that. Jeebus this could be a scary ruling. Hopefully the justices see how dangerous this could be and slam the door on it. Scalia, in his scathing dissent on anonymous 911 calls, gives me hope but I know Thomas and Alito already have Viagara-induced hard-ons for this law.

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

And it's yet another reason to password protect your phone. Yes, that can be hacked, but they certainly can't do it on site.

Also another example of why you shouldn't photograph yourself at the scene of a crime, with large quantities of drugs or weapons, or with stolen property.

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I suppose that some might say that the police should impound the cell phone without looking at it and then apply for a warrant.....

That would be my guess as to the proper procedure here. Presumably doesn't it work the same way if you have a warrant for someone's apartment and their cell phone is there. Can't the cops seize it and then check it out if it was found as part of the search???