[JoshTriplett]

So they should have to actually break the law to get justice in a timely fashion? If you're being affected by a law that would see you face criminal charges, challenging it ought to be as timely as those criminal charges; otherwise, it's all too easy to set situations like this up.

While I look forward to the first instance of someone standing up and very publically and broadly violating an NSL to get such an abomination into a real court, that shouldn't be a necessary step. The whole mess needs abolishing, but in the interim, 10 years is about 9.95 years too long.

[DannyBee]

"So they should have to actually break the law to get justice in a timely fashion? "

If you want to multiply the judiciary budget by a factor of 50 (which would be a lot of your tax dollars), yeah, i bet we could make this work, but as to the philosophical question:

Yes. If you have no danger of actually being criminally charged, the courts should be free to resolve the issue at their leisure. Yes, there is a chilling effect, blah blah blah. That is not the same as "some guy gets the death penalty or thrown in prison for life". Courts resolve those issues first, and others second. Period.

" that shouldn't be a necessary step."

Sorry, but i completely disagree. Criminal charges involve possibility of being thrown in prison. Civil things do not.

"The whole mess needs abolishing, but in the interim, 10 years is about 9.95 years too long."

Remember this the next time the federal judiciary has to sit in front of congress and beg for money to fill the existing vacancies in appeals courts, let alone become large enough to make what you want happen.

The pendency of appeals and length of lawsuits is directly related to docket sizes growing without bound.

[JoshTriplett]

Ignoring the gag order would see you thrown in prison. Yes, obviously, a suit to get that law thrown out doesn't take priority over a murder trial, but that doesn't mean it should have the same priority as someone griping about their neighbor's fence color causing them emotional distress, either.

And there's another rather obvious solution to the volume of cases going through the criminal justice system that doesn't involve expanding it to handle that volume...

[DannyBee]

"Ignoring the gag order would see you thrown in prison. "

Yet the history of our country is one of "commit civil disobedience and deal with consequences if you actually want change". Remember, they were revolutionaries.

"And there's another rather obvious solution to the volume of cases going through the criminal justice system that doesn't involve expanding it to handle that volume... "

Good luck with that one too :)

[Lawtonfogle]

>So they should have to actually break the law to get justice in a timely fashion?

Kinda like how you have to show you've been harmed to sue someone. Nice rules in theory, but in practice the government will use them like loopholes to keep themselves out of trouble.

[DannyBee]

These rules do not exist because the government used them as loopholes, these rules exist because citizens used them as loopholes to sue other citizens :)

The government was already protected.

For example, you literally cannot sue the US government for torts without its permission. This has been absolute since day 1 of our government.

The government has decided to abrogate immunity in a bunch of situations, but in general, the government was already protected from whatever it wanted to be.