“Law-abiding Americans deserve to know that their government will not secretly tap their phones, read their medical records, access their library accounts or otherwise invade their personal lives, with no oversight or accountability. Law-abiding Americans also deserve to know that when law enforcement can show an impartial judge clear evidence of criminal activity or a threat to national security, swift and decisive action will be taken to protect the public. That is the balance we must achieve.” KnowsShowsGovernmentActionLawTakenClearRecordsAchieveSecurityJudgingBalanceActivityProtectEvidenceDeserveAccountsThreatLibraryPhonesCriminalsAccessMedicalAccountabilityPersonal LifeNational SecurityLaw EnforcementEnforcementAbidingOversightDecisive ActionMedical Records Author:Ralph Neas
“NSEERS was so poorly conceived and badly managed that it created chaos and fear. Trust between the immigrant community and law enforcement was severely strained and, in the end, there was no evidence that any terrorists were apprehended as a result of the effort.” EndsLawCommunityResultsEffortEvidenceChaosTerroristImmigrantsLaw EnforcementEnforcement Author:James Zogby
“Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial, and not an inquisitorial, system - a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured, and may not, by coercion, prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth.” MayStatesLawUsedPrinciplesProductsProveMouthsEvidenceMethodGuiltFollowingConvictionCriminalsPsychologicalBeing TrueConfessionEnforcementAccusedUnlikelyCoercionProve ItAdmissionSecuredInvoluntaryCriminal Law Author:Felix Frankfurter
“If, occasionally, historical evidence does not square with formulated laws, it should be remembered that a law is but a deduction from experience and experiment, and therefore laws must conform with historical facts, not facts with laws.” IfsShouldDoeFactsLawEvidenceHistoricalExperimentsRememberedSquaresConformDeductionsHistorical Facts Book:Worlds in Collision Source: Worlds in Collision
“A large number of suspects, both men and women, escaped martial law for lack of any shred of evidence against them on which a court-martial could convict. So they began setting them free in groups, according to their birth-place. But half-way, the car-load would be emptied into a ditch.” MenWayWould BeLawNumbersHalfGroupsCarBirthEvidenceMen And WomenCourtSettingSettingsSuspectsLoadLarge NumbersConvictsHalf WayBirth PlaceMartial Law Author:Georges Bernanos
“That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man bath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.” MenGivingLawFoundCausesLibertyLandDemandJudgmentEvidenceCriminalsFavorsTrialsGuiltyWitnessTwelvePeersConsentCompelledDeprivedBathsJuryAccusationProsecutionAccusers Author:George Mason
“That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly, ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled, for the public good.” PeopleMenUseLawInterestCommunityCommonOughtMembersEvidenceElectionPropertyBoundsPermanentSufficientAttachmentRepresentativesConsentDeprivedAssemblySuffragePublic GoodCommon Interests Author:George Mason
“However accurate or inaccurate the agency's numbers may be, tax law explicitly presumes that the IRS is always right -- and implicitly presumes that the taxpayer is always wrong -- in any dispute with the government. In many cases, the IRS introduces no evidence whatsoever of its charges; it merely asserts that a taxpayer had a certain amount of unreported income and therefore owes a proportionate amount in taxes, plus interest and penalties.” MayGovernmentLawCertainInterestJusticeNumbersCasesAmountTaxesEvidenceIncomeAgencyPlusAccurateIntroducingPenaltiesDisputesTaxpayersIrsAlways Wrong Author:James Bovard
“Jurors have found, again and again, and at critical moments, according to what is their sense of the rational and just. If their sense of justice has gone one way, and the case another, they have found "against the evidence," ... the English common law rests upon a bargain between the Law and the people: The jury box is where the people come into the court: The judge watches them and the people watch back. A jury is the place where the bargain is struck. The jury attends in judgment, not only upon the accused, but also upon the justice and the humanity of the Law.” PeopleIfsWayMomentsLawHumanityFoundJusticeCommonWatchesCasesGoneJudgingJudgmentEvidenceCourtBoxesCriticalRationalOne WayAgain And AgainAccusedJuryBargainsCommon LawJurorsCritical Moments Author:E. P. Thompson
“It is not true that a man can believe or disbelieve what he will. But it is certain that an active desire to find any proposition true will unconsciously tend to that result by dismissing importunate suggestions which run counter to the belief, and welcoming those which favor it. The psychological law, that we only see what interests us, and only assimilate what is adapted to our condition, causes the mind to select its evidence.” MenMindBelieveRunningLawDesireCertainBeliefCausesInterestResultsConditionsEvidenceActiveFavorsPsychologicalWelcomeSuggestionsPropositionsSelectAdaptedImportunate Book:Problems of Life and Mind Source: Problems of Life and Mind
“That so many of us find it entirely plausible that a vast network of researchers and health officials and doctors worldwide would willfully harm children for money is evidence of what capitalism is really taking from us. Capitalism has already impoverished the working people who generate wealth for others. And capitalism has already impoverished us culturally, robbing unmarketable art of its value. But when we begin to see the pressures of capitalism as innate laws of human motivation, when we begin to believe that everyone is owned, then we are truly impoverished.” PeopleBelieveHumansChildrenArtLawMotivationValuesWealthEvidenceCapitalismDoctorsPressureHarmOfficialsInnateResearchersPlausibleRobbing Author:Eula Biss
“No one knows who wrote the laws of physics or where they come from. Science is based on testable, reproducible evidence, and so far we cannot test the universe before the Big Bang.” KnowsBigsLawUniverseEvidenceTestsPhysicsBangsLaws Of Physics Author:Michio Kaku
“But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church.” WorldFirstsReasonHandsAgeLawChristChurchHistorySawsBenefitsEvidenceSickBlindRaisedExcuseSensesDoctrineDiscipleLaws Of NatureHealedApostlesPaganRoman EmpireLameSuspendedOmnipotencePhilosophicProdigiesInattention Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire