Their constituents must be the residents of Pennsylvania Ave and K Street.

Like it or not, the democrats supporting this are reflecting the opinions of their constituents.

Really? And your evidence is.....??

I'll wait while you get some.

You know what they will say? The same thing they have said in the past when the Constitution has gone up against Public Safety. They will uphold the legislation....

Right. Of course they will. Just like they did here.

The Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom.... The Framers’ inherent distrust of governmental power was the driving force behind the constitutional plan that allocated powers among three independent branches. This design serves not only to make Government accountable but also to secure individual liberty. ... The [Suspension] Clause ... ensures that, except during periods of formal suspension, the Judiciary will have a time-tested device, the writ, to maintain the “delicate balance of governance” that is itself the surest safeguard of liberty. ... [T]he Government’s view is that the Constitution had no effect [at Guantanamo]... [but the] necessary implication of the argument is that ... it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint. Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this.... Abstaining from questions involving formal sovereignty and territorial governance is one thing. To hold the political branches have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will is quite another. ... [it] would permit a striking anomaly in our tripartite system of government, leading to a regime in which Congress and the President, not this Court, say “what the law is.” ... The test for determining the scope of this provision must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain.... The real risks, the real threats, of terrorist attacks are constant and not likely soon to abate. The ways to disrupt our life and laws are so many and unforeseen that the Court should not attempt even some general catalogue of crises that might occur.... Security depends upon a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and the ability of our Armed Forces to act and to interdict. There are further considerations, however. Security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers. ... Within the constitution’s separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person. ... Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.

Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. ___ (2008) passim, available at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-1195.pdf

This was the opinion, of course, in which the Court struck down a provision removing a Constitutional right from detainees claimed by the political branches to be a "threat to Public Safety." So much for what the Supremes supposedly always say "when the Constitution has gone up against Public Safety."

Scalia, of course, foamed and gnashed and raged and denounced the "fact" that (in his view) the Public Safety was being undermined in favor of that Goddamned Piece of Paper:

America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad... On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. ...It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barri­caded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, ... The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the warharder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Ameri­cans to be killed.

So congratulations, Jason. Neither the majority nor the dissent in Boumediene agree with you. But what's the opinion of nine Supreme Court justices against your formidable legal skills? Is this an example of your capacity for "reasoned and logical thought"?

The rest of your reply is similarly... shall we say... extraterrestrial. You had earlier claimed that the 2008 FISA amendments "granted immunity for something companies are already immune to." That's a pretty simple, not to say simplistic, formulation. Any decent lawyer or judge would find that a slam dunk, if it were true. Yet, somehow, either AT&T's lawyers somehow missed making that argument in their motion to dismiss, or that the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California didn't buy it. Your claim fails to explain why, if it's such a slam dunk, and if the conduct was already immunized, the Administration and the telcos were so desperate to try for an end run around the courts by creating new, extra super-duper immunity. Of course, it might be because the Court of Appeal at oral argument appeared equally skeptical. The best you could come up with, as you beat your retreat, was that the unequivocal ruling that "because 'the very action in question has previously been held unlawful,' AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal" was Just the Words of One Judge. It appears that the Court of Appeal was on its way to disagreeing with you -- again. But the fact that the Administration and the telcos had to run to Congress and use fear and lobbying cash to try an end run around the courts and the slam-dunk immunity you suppose was granted in 1978 doesn't do much for your "argument".

Elsewhere you claimed that "A number of lawyers have posted long and detailed explanations why both you and your horribly uniformed blogger are wrong about this legislation as well as the underlying legal factors behind it." Yet, somehow, you didn't manage to link to even one, and today, you still haven't. I'm sure there are one or two who agree with you, of course.

Was that what you meant when you claimed for yourself a capacity for "reasoned and logical thought" and claimed I had none? When you come back through the looking glass, let us know.

Do you even bother to read your comments before you post them?

Naturally. It's questionable, however, whether you read them before shooting off your mouth in reply.

Your replies are, consistently, empty ad hominems with large, baseless, unsubstantiated claims of Authority at your back. Time and time again you either respond with invective or, when confronted with evidence you simply can't refute, or asked to supply your own evidence to back up your grandiose claims, you disappear entirely. Sound and fury, signifying nothing, except when, as shown here, you can't even manage that.