Feds: "Pilots have no rights" - Really?

ClimbnSink said:
Yup. The Kings deserved it.*sigh*
Click to expand...

No. But the agents had information, faulty as it was, that they were flying a stolen airplane. The agents were investigating what they believed to be a crime.

These latest rounds of gestapo treatment involve search and seizure with no reasonable belief (or even reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop) of any crime being committed. They are incorrectly assuming that piloting an aircraft equates to waiver of all fourth and fifth amendment rights. Their justification? Because people are merely excercising their freedom of travel by flying west to east.
 
Corpsmaide said:
Just because you are not under arrest does not mean you can just go. There is detainment.
Click to expand...


An LEO may only detain if they have a reasonable suspicion of involvement of criminal activity. This is a lower standard than "probably cause" necessary to arrest or obtain a search warrant. The office may also do a pat down to look for weapons, and may seize anything that upon a "plain feel" is obviously contraband. But you can't just detain someone for the heck of it. You have to be able to articulate the grounds for your reasonable suspicion.
 
docmirror said:
However, it cannot be indefinite, and it cannot be punitive. If we go by the actions in Gitmo, it appears that detainment can last up to 12 years without charges.
Click to expand...
Those are enemy combatants captured on the battlefield. Those rules do not apply to U.S. citizens. If you are a U.S. citizen, then they indict you, like John Walker Lindh. http://www.justice.gov/ag/2ndindictment.htm He's lucky to have escaped the death penalty for treason, imho. Enemy combatants are detained until the hostilities are over, but are not to be executed.
 
Last edited:
Umm NDAA anyone. All your rights are make believe.
 
PPC1052 said:
Those are enemy combatants captured on the battlefield. Those rules do not apply to U.S. citizens. If you are a U.S. citizen, then they indict you, like John Walker Lindh. http://www.justice.gov/ag/2ndindictment.htm He's lucky to have escaped the death penalty for treason, imho. Enemy combatants are detained until the hostilities are over, but are not to be executed.
Click to expand...

Oh? Did congress declare war on another nation/state while I slept? I would have expected to see that on Fox if we were at war, and there was a battlefield.

Last I read, most of those left at Gitmo are rendition cases where we went out with a sapper squad and captured people from locations undetermined(but not at war with) and then brought to detention. No habeus corpus, no Geneva Convention, no ucmj(they are not 'uniformed' soldiers). It's either gotta be a uniformed code, or criminal code. I don't care which, but take your pick. Grabbing them, and keeping them in 'detention' for 12 years is pretty crappy way to run a republic which is supposed to stand for something.
 
You are correct; there has been no congressional declaration of war. But that does not mean that there are no battlefields, and no enemy combatants.

You are correct that under the Geneva Convention there are differing standards that apply to enemy combatants not wearing uniforms than the standards that apply to enemy uniformed troops. (Although, to be fair, the convention does not specifically refer to "unlawful combatants.") One of the difficulties we have encountered is the Geneva Convention assumes state sponsored conflicts, whereas, Al Qaeda, is an non-state organization. The round holes don't fit neatly in the square pegs. The Geneva Convention (Third) requires that prisoners of war must be released and re-patriated after cessation of active hostilities. But I am not sure why you think that their treatment must be governed by "criminal code" or "uniform code."

Whether that is "crappy" or not is, of course, a different question.
 
Man, the "war on drugs" and the modern invention of the "terrorist" are the biggest money and power makers for govt. Sad thing is the majority of this knuckle dragging country is actually afraid enough of the boogie man terrorist and lil Billy getting reefer madness, that they will happily give up every right their forefathers died to protect.

If I could opt out of this BS and "take my chances" to exempt me from all this crap I would in a second.

Sad thing, these wars don't make us safer, quite the opposite actually. This never ending war helps create the people that Fox news and the whitehouse say we should fear, the war on drugs has made selling drugs SOO profitable, giving power to gangs, by us blowing up goat farmers half way around the globe, we make the people of these countries prime recruits for anyone with few bucks to hand out to do damage to the US.

Meanwhile, I (as US citizen on US soil) get questioned when I'm not committing any crime, where am I going... how about none of your F'ing business, think that cop/dhs/ice/whatever guy would be down with me searching his chit, yea didn't think so.

Check out the documenty "Retrastrapo" on hulu, these are the guys who end up in DHS/ICE/police after they get out of the military.
 
Last edited:
As I stated elsewhere, this is just part of an incremental attack on GA that is ongoing and expanding.

First, they make flying horrendously expensive by taxing and regulating everything to death.

Then, they make it difficult to keep airports open. Runways and new hangars are made so artificially expensive to build that most airports just throw up their hands and give up.

Then, despite plummeting participation, they keep racheting up the regulatory environment, in the name of "safety". The horrendously expensive ADS-B requirements are one result. The unneeded control towers that can't be closed, are another. Slowly but surely, the common man is squeezed out of GA.

Now, they are randomly detaining us at airports in IOWA, for gosh-sakes. Why? No one will say. It's terrifying.

Finally, the Feds are doing a full frontal assault on Oshkosh, the Mecca of general aviation -- the last hope for freedom of the skies left. EAA is being bent over for half a million bucks -- or else no Airventure.

And STILL we hear from people who defend this government! It is to weep. The WWII generation must be clenching their fists in rage to see how we so casually fritter away everything they fought and died to protect.
 
Jay Honeck said:
As I stated elsewhere, this is just part of an incremental attack on GA that is ongoing and expanding.

First, they make flying horrendously expensive by taxing and regulating everything to death.

Then, they make it difficult to keep airports open. Runways and new hangars are made so artificially expensive to build that most airports just throw up their hands and give up.

Then, despite plummeting participation, they keep racheting up the regulatory environment, in the name of "safety". The horrendously expensive ADS-B requirements are one result. The unneeded control towers that can't be closed, are another. Slowly but surely, the common man is squeezed out of GA.

Now, they are randomly detaining us at airports in IOWA, for gosh-sakes. Why? No one will say. It's terrifying.

Finally, the Feds are doing a full frontal assault on Oshkosh, the Mecca of general aviation -- the last hope for freedom of the skies left. EAA is being bent over for half a million bucks -- or else no Airventure.

And STILL we hear from people who defend this government! It is to weep. The WWII generation must be clenching their fists in rage to see how we so casually fritter away everything they fought and died to protect.
Click to expand...

:yes:
 
Re-post from our CTFlier forum... thanx Charlie Tango

First they came for the twin commander pilots,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a twin commander pilot.

Then they came for the Caravan drivers,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Caravan driver.

Then they came for the 206 pilots,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a 206 pilot.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
 
The reality of America today is this:

You really don't have any rights against an armed to the teeth LEO team, claiming you may have broken any one of tens of thousands of laws.

You get to pay, and pay heavily to clear your name and/or stuff back at Court, while paying for the other side's lawyers via taxes, too.

It's a great deal for Lawyers. Not so hot for the average Citizen. All we can hope for is Law Schools and the Bars to crank out enough lawyers to keep prices low. And there's limits to how well that works since lawyers eat their young (quite literally).

No offense to the Attorneys present. You're all nice people (well, Spike claimed in another thread that he considers himself an *******, but I know better), but the system is stacked toward making sure lawyers get paid, plain and simple.

Sometimes it's worth it to play along. $250/hr for the Probate Attorney who charges 0.9 of an hour to read an e-mail is still a Net-Win for me... But stepping back a bit and looking it over, he's a ripoff of the highest order. And he knows it. I'm still willing to pay it. And he's on my side.

In these government cases, the government you bought and paid for is your enemy. And they send guys with guns to find new players for their games.

You're better off being really good buddies with the DA, than relying on the Law to save your ass in the current state of things. Far less risk.
 
CT4ME said:
Re-post from our CTFlier forum... thanx Charlie Tango

First they came for the twin commander pilots,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a twin commander pilot.

Then they came for the Caravan drivers,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Caravan driver.

Then they came for the 206 pilots,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a 206 pilot.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Click to expand...

Excellent.
 
behu6a2a.jpg
 
PPC1052 said:
You are correct; there has been no congressional declaration of war. But that does not mean that there are no battlefields, and no enemy combatants.
Click to expand...

Actually, yes there was.

The Authorization for Use Of Military Force, approved shortly after 9/11 is either (a) Null and void for not having a legitimate source of authority under the Constitution, or (b) An exercise of Congress' power to declare war.

Courts consistently determine that if there is some power reasonably available, then that power is what was used, whether Congress explicitly invokes such power or not.

There is nothing in the Constitution that says that Congress has to use the phrase "Declaration of War" to execute their power to declare war.
 
JeffDG said:
Actually, yes there was.

The Authorization for Use Of Military Force, approved shortly after 9/11 is either (a) Null and void for not having a legitimate source of authority under the Constitution, or (b) An exercise of Congress' power to declare war.

Courts consistently determine that if there is some power reasonably available, then that power is what was used, whether Congress explicitly invokes such power or not.

There is nothing in the Constitution that says that Congress has to use the phrase "Declaration of War" to execute their power to declare war.
Click to expand...

On the other hand, the Supreme Court has decided that the right to remain silent must be explicitly invoked in order to prevent one's silence from being used as evidence. However, they also said that there is no particular wording that must be used, so there is at least that much similarity.
 
JeffDG said:
Actually, yes there was.

The Authorization for Use Of Military Force, approved shortly after 9/11 is either (a) Null and void for not having a legitimate source of authority under the Constitution, or (b) An exercise of Congress' power to declare war.

Courts consistently determine that if there is some power reasonably available, then that power is what was used, whether Congress explicitly invokes such power or not.

There is nothing in the Constitution that says that Congress has to use the phrase "Declaration of War" to execute their power to declare war.
Click to expand...

Actually, no there wasn't. There have been five wars based on the constitutional powers granted. 1812, Mex-america, WWI, WWII and I can't remember the other one. All other hostilities have been 'police actions' with the military acting in capacity as the global police force.

I'm not going to dig into the minutia, but I believe the actionable word has become 'war' in the title of the congressional record, and a vote taken. Things like 'Authorization of Military Force' sound like a war, act like a war, and the prez thinks it's a war -- but it isn't.

As an interesting side note, all of our wars were either a draw(1812) or a win. All of our police actions have been a draw(Korea) or a loss.

Food for thought.
 
docmirror said:
..I'm not going to dig into the minutia, but I believe the actionable word has become 'war' in the title of the congressional record, and a vote taken. Things like 'Authorization of Military Force' sound like a war, act like a war, and the prez thinks it's a war -- but it isn't...
Click to expand...

Which Supreme Court decisions agree with the above?
 
docmirror said:
Actually, no there wasn't. There have been five wars based on the constitutional powers granted. 1812, Mex-america, WWI, WWII and I can't remember the other one. All other hostilities have been 'police actions' with the military acting in capacity as the global police force.

I'm not going to dig into the minutia, but I believe the actionable word has become 'war' in the title of the congressional record, and a vote taken. Things like 'Authorization of Military Force' sound like a war, act like a war, and the prez thinks it's a war -- but it isn't.

As an interesting side note, all of our wars were either a draw(1812) or a win. All of our police actions have been a draw(Korea) or a loss.

Food for thought.
Click to expand...

If the AUMF is not predicated on the power of Congress to declare war, then what power was Congress exercising when they adopted it?

The Congress is a body of limited enumerated powers. If it does something, it must fall into one of those enumerated powers. The only one that fits the AUMF is the power to declare war.
 
JeffDG said:
If the AUMF is not predicated on the power of Congress to declare war, then what power was Congress exercising when they adopted it?

The Congress is a body of limited enumerated powers. If it does something, it must fall into one of those enumerated powers. The only one that fits the AUMF is the power to declare war.
Click to expand...

Slessinger, A "The Imperial Presidency" C 1976-ish. All your questions will be answered.
 
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is what allowed military force to be used in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. Sure seemed like a war to me and others that served there.
That resolution still didn't mitigate any Constitutional Rights of the populace of which I'm aware. As a matter of fact, we thought we were fighting to preserve those rights in many ways.

Best,

Dave
 
JeffDG said:
Actually, yes there was.

The Authorization for Use Of Military Force, approved shortly after 9/11 is either (a) Null and void for not having a legitimate source of authority under the Constitution, or (b) An exercise of Congress' power to declare war.

Courts consistently determine that if there is some power reasonably available, then that power is what was used, whether Congress explicitly invokes such power or not.

There is nothing in the Constitution that says that Congress has to use the phrase "Declaration of War" to execute their power to declare war.
Click to expand...

Has the Supreme Court ever ruled on the specific question of whether an authorization for use of military force constitutes a declaration of war?
 
JeffDG said:
The Congress is a body of limited enumerated powers. If it does something, it must fall into one of those enumerated powers. The only one that fits the AUMF is the power to declare war.
Click to expand...

An argument like that could be used to justify the stretching of the interstate commerce clause that so many decry.
 
Palmpilot said:
Has the Supreme Court ever ruled on the specific question of whether an authorization for use of military force constitutes a declaration of war?
Click to expand...

The AUMF was approved as a Joint Resolution of Congress. Joint Resolutions must be presented to the President and be signed (or vetoed), and have the full force of law attached to them.

Congress is a body of enumerated powers as defined in Article I, Section 8. Here's the list:
Article I said:
SECTION 8.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Click to expand...

With the exception of the one I've bolded, which one would authorize the passage of an AUMF?
 
FYI: The AUMF:
Section 2: IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use all
necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed,
or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,
or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent
any future acts of international terrorism against the United States
by such nations, organizations or persons.
Click to expand...
 
JeffDG said:
The AUMF was approved as a Joint Resolution of Congress. Joint Resolutions must be presented to the President and be signed (or vetoed), and have the full force of law attached to them.

Congress is a body of enumerated powers as defined in Article I, Section 8. Here's the list:


With the exception of the one I've bolded, which one would authorize the passage of an AUMF?
Click to expand...

I think some people might argue that there is no provision that authorizes it.

I think your arguiments have merit, but the opposite position is arguable as well. :dunno:
 
JeffDG said:
True, but that stretching is the current state of the law.
Click to expand...

Because it's been blessed by the Supreme Court. That's why I want to know if AUMFs have received their blessing.
 
Palmpilot said:
Because it's been blessed by the Supreme Court. That's why I want to know if AUMFs have received their blessing.
Click to expand...

Who has standing to challenge?

One of the keys to the "rational basis" testing that the Supremes have engaged in is that they will conclude (think of the Obamacare decision) that if there is a power that could have been used by Congress to authorize something, even if they did not say "We're using this power!" (ie. in Obamacare, Congress took great pains to say that the Individual Mandate was NOT at tax), then the Supremes will uphold the exercise of that power.

There is no other power in the Constitution that could give Congress the power to approve an "Authorization for the Use of Military Force"...except for the power to declare war. Otherwise, it's an intrusion upon the President's powers under Article II as the Commander-in-Chief, and separation of powers does not permit Congress to appropriate that power to themselves.
 
Jeff, it looks like you're pretty worked up about this. I really advise you to get that book I mentioned. All the questions you have about these things was covered at the time the War Powers Resolution was in play.

Another point I recall from reading the federalist papers is that one of them changed the language in the constitution from "make war" to "declare war" such that it formalized the mechanism by which the nation would be bound to a war, and provided protection from the Imperialism that killed so many Englishmen abroad with impunity based on the Kings musings.

There really is a decisive difference in waging and declaring war. I stand by my statement that we've only had 5 of them from my recounting of US history, but we've had a lot more police actions. I'm sure you and others want to call them 'wars' but the fact is they were and are not. Your ranting about the AUMF being a declaration of war doesn't fit the narrative because no specific nation state is specified, no use of the word war, and no theater or alliance is defined. It is the most ambiguous use of force statement I've ever seen, and as such, it's a travesty to what the constitution was designed to prevent. Nixon did it, so did Clinton, and Bush's, and now BO. So, it has developed the progressive imprimatur simply because it's been used as such is not a defense of moving the goal posts ever closer to imperialism. It is a road to ruin, and I will not be a part.
 
If you don't know the answer, just say so...just saying "Read the book!" is not the most convincing argument.

I've quoted the relevant sections of the Constitution, it should be pretty straightforward fro you to poke holes in my argument.
 
What does it mean . .. 'to declare War?'

Must there be a formal proclamation, all printed up and fancy? Or would authorization to use force be sufficient? So we're saying that the President can't launch on warning because in order to destroy the Sovs or the Red Chinese he needs to get Congress to approve? You know somewhere there is a secret document from Congress in the 1950's authorizing the Prez to use the biscuit in the event of sneak attack - just so all the lawyers don't choke before they get vaporized.

The Gulf of Tonkin res was clearly a declaration of war on the North Vietnamese. As is what was passed in Sept 2001.

Guys - there is no 'detainment. . . ' It is called being detained or detention in legal speak.

No 'probably cause' either - its probable cause.

As has been stated ad nauseum what you must do in the event of a felony stop of your aircraft [guns drawn, multiple officers and violence being used, not merely authorized] is to not physically resist. That will not end well. You must only resist verbally. Remember - the courts will examine what you did and what you said in a nice comfy, safe room with sycophants [law clerks] and exemptions [as judges] from many of the rules you must obey. So resistance needs to be clearly expressed verbally . . . so that multiple persons hear it.
 
I wonder what the legal justification was for Iraq - since it was pretty clear to anyone with a brain that Saddam and Bin Laden were oil and water . . . and both had egos too big to accomodate in the same room at the same time - much less cooperate on topics against the US.

The pretext was just so flimsy . . .
 
comanchepilot said:
I wonder what the legal justification was for Iraq - since it was pretty clear to anyone with a brain that Saddam and Bin Laden were oil and water . . . and both had egos too big to accomodate in the same room at the same time - much less cooperate on topics against the US.

The pretext was just so flimsy . . .
Click to expand...

Congress adopted a separate AUMF for Iraq on March 3, 2003 (HJ Res 114)
 
I have no interest in parsing whether Congress' actions constituted a "declaration of war" or merely "authorized military force." A lot of angels can dance on that pin. Resolution isn't necessary for this discussion.
 
JeffDG said:
Congress adopted a separate AUMF for Iraq on March 3, 2003 (HJ Res 114)
Click to expand...

Thanks - I did not bother to check . . .

So we have 'anyone involved in September 11 or harboring same' [does mean the Democrat party too?] and that use of force is probably now moot - at least the Taliban come back. We never 'undid' the declaration of War for WWII - so we can still go attack the Axis powers if we'd like - which proves the point of context and not paperwork is what is important . . . .

And then Iraq. What a CF that was from the get go. . .
 
JeffDG said:
If you don't know the answer, just say so...just saying "Read the book!" is not the most convincing argument.

I've quoted the relevant sections of the Constitution, it should be pretty straightforward fro you to poke holes in my argument.
Click to expand...

Then don't read. don't read the federalist papers, or the works by Gibbon, or even the communist manifesto. Don't bother, you've got it all figured out. Just go on thinking the way you have and progress like the rest of them.

Like I said, I'm not coming along. If I want to declare war(there's that phrase again) then dammit, I'm gonna declare war, and then prosecute that war to it's conclusion. You want to wage war, and make targets off limits, and restrict combatants, and select people to die from the comfort of a padded chair flying a drone over someone elses home, they we're gonna continue to tie or lose. Maybe that's what the electorate wants, is a continual state of war with one faction or another. There's a book for that too, but forget it, the progressive are in charge.

It's just a matter of time until we're back to the 13th century.
 
So I heard the director of the fbi has admitted to using drones over the us today. Wonder if they were flying in the system or rogue
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top