There are bad doctors. Plenty. Few of them though do sophisticated surgeries. Why? If they butcher too many people no one will show up for the next surgery. There are bad accountants. Plenty. But if they do too many mistakes, again, they’ll eventually have no business. Not to talk about barbers or janitorial professionals… But lawyers? Where do bad lawyers go?
First, they would start arguing what it means to be a bad lawyer. Grades and the reputation of the school. Perhaps. But that only defines mediocre. Bad is to emulate Scalia and his ilk, who believe interpreting the law requires giving up common sense and intelligence. Bad, and I mean really bad is to harm people because you are an idiot and you just don’t know it, because there is no way you can know it. Someone more restrained would say “that’s how indeterminate the law is,” while I would say “by definition idiocy is an absolute which cannot be measured if you possess it.”
And this brings me to the recent Southern District decision that the NSA mass collection of phone records was legal because the judge – The Honorable William H. Pauley, III, — said so. He decided that one act of telephone spying was legal and so mass phone spying must be legal too, because if one person crossing the street engages in a legal act, so are millions crossing the street. But that judge missed the point (inevitably, if you are a bad lawyer).
Can you see the fallacy in his argument? There is no street crossing as far as the NSA is concerned. Good observation.
More to the point, Judge Pauley (not to be confused with Pauly Shore, who starred in “Jury Duty”) made the same mistake anybody makes sooner or later in middle school: I have this great secret but I cannot keep it alone so let me share it with one more person…and boom everybody knows it within hours, because as both Pauly Shore and Judge Pauley would say, you cannot have any expectation of privacy once you shared your secret with a third person.
Okay? Okay.
But what about collecting phone data? Is Verizon my indiscreet frenemy? Doesn’t phone collection seem closer to wire data collection, for which, the Fourth Amendment still requires a warrant? Even according to Justice Scalia? Just because some people choose to speak aloud their problems on cell phones and on a mere bus ride we all learn who has gonorrhea and who has just a herpes, shall we deny everybody’s expectations of privacy, shall we, Judge Pauley? Even Pauly Shore would think it extreme. Oh, but you just did it, Judge Pauley. And here is my piece of advice, please don’t call your mama to tell her why you did it because we will all know the reason, soon.
Hush up,
Don’t tell Mama,
Shush up,
Don’t tell Mama…
Don’t tell Mama,
Whatever you do.
If you had a secret,
You bet I would keep it.
I would never tell on you.
But I don’t expect that from you,
Judge Pauley.
Or, if you’d rather hear it from Dame Judy Dench, here is her plea to you: [youtube id= LaP9EDTqfyM width= 470 height=315]
You should be thanking Judge Pauley. He’s saving the Supremes the trouble…or some trouble.
Obviously Judge Pauley knows something we’re not (for our own good) allowed to know. Those heroes of the people in the Supreme Court would surely decide it was, as most things are, a matter for the states, that the Federal government shouldn’t be allowed to decide if the NSA can listen in.Except. It’s not about listening, it’s not about metadata. It’s about pictures. The traitor Snowdon (practically) leaked that Barak Obama (obviously) got Merkle’s selfies, further supported (circumstantially) by the international photo-fest at Mandela’s funeral.The NSA is selling the naked cell phone photos of America to China.Facts: They’re the only country with enough cash to afford them and a population large enough to enjoy them, there was just an article in the NY Times: the market for sexy stuff in China is booming.
It all boils down to the international part of the Commerce Clause which puts the Federal government in charge.Why sell our personal smut to foreigners? Obvious again, they’re doing it to save America’s economy. Sort of like what Reagan and Ollie North tried to do with Iran: substitute naughty photos for illegal arms, China for Iran, American hostagesfor cold hard cash – which (substituting Americans for cold hard cash) is something our government does all the time. The Tea Party are the Contras, Obama and the Obamacare socialists are the Sandinistas.Come to think of it, maybe Iran could use some naughty pictures?
if William H. Pauley III is a bad lawyer, I guess I am too, and also Pauly Shore – we are ALL Judge Paul(e)y!!!PS. I know what you’re thinking; don’t blaspheme the sexiness of America’s selfies, freedom of speech, sure, but there are limits.
Wow, this is the best little indie blog I have ever seen!