Probably the biggest problem with the so-called rule of law is that what the Supreme Court thinks the law is might be very different from what you, me, or a majority of Americans think.
from Wikipedia:
Fleming v. Nestor
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A 1954 amendment to the Social Security Act stripped old-age benefits from contributors who were deported under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The following year Ephram Nestor, an alien from Bulgaria who had paid into Social Security for 19 years, began drawing benefits. Nestor was subsequently deported for involvement in the Communist Party, and his benefits were terminated. He sued the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare on the basis that the amendment had deprived him of a property interest in Social Security without due process and was therefore invalid.
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The Court ruled that there is no contractual right to receive Social Security payments. Payments due under Social Security are not “property” and are not protected by the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The interest of a beneficiary of Social Security is protected only by the Due Process Clause.
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Bottom line, the government has no obligation to pay Social Security to anyone.
Wickard v. Filburn
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An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies. Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that because his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated as commerce, let alone "interstate" commerce (described in the Constitution as "Commerce ... among the several states"). The Supreme Court disagreed: "Whether the subject of the regulation in question was 'production', 'consumption', or 'marketing' is, therefore, not material for purposes of deciding the question of federal power before us. ... But even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect'.
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So there you have it. Anything that could possibly affect interstate commerce is interstate commerce, even if nothing is being bought or sold. This absurd ruling has yet to be overturned.
United States v. Reynolds
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Three employees of the Radio Corporation of America, an Air Force contractor, were killed when a B-29 Superfortress crashed in 1948 in Waycross, Georgia. Their widows brought an action in tort seeking damages in federal court, under the Federal Tort Claims Act. As part of this action, they requested production of accident reports concerning the crash, but were told by the Air Force that the release of such details would threaten national security. Because of the failure of the government to produce the documents, a directed verdict in favor of the plaintiffs was granted by the trial court. The judgment was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The United States Supreme Court reversed the decision, and remanded it to the trial court. After this, a settlement was reached with the widows, who received an aggregate sum of $170,000 in exchange for a release of liability to the Government.
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There are good reasons to keep secrets. However, the US government and military too often use secrecy and national security as a pretext for deflecting criticism and scrutiny from their failures and crimes. In this case, the widows were essentially paid hush money to prevent an embarrassing investigation into the circumstances of the crash.
On a related note, it was amusing to read that there is in fact a Rule 34 in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and it does not involve pornography. The rule states:
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a party can seek documents and other real objects from parties and non parties
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The good news in all of this is that Supreme Court decisions can be overturned, though that often takes decades if it happens at all.
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