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Re:Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Sena... by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @03:55PM (#6054332)
> Shouldn't the interpretation of our Constitution be left to the Supreme Court?

No.

> I mean, the Constitution explicitly grants the Court those powers.

The Constitution defines the judicial power of the United States to include deciding certain classes of legal controversies, including those arising under the Constitution, and provides that the Supreme Court is the organ which executes that role in both an explicitly defined set of cases, and in certain other cases as Congress directs. But that is pretty far from explicitly granting the Supreme Court the sole and exclusive power to interpret the Constitution.

Interpreting the Constitution is no less essential to the Supreme Court's role of deciding certain legal controversies than it is to, e.g., the President's role of seeing that the laws -- including the Constitution -- are faithfully executed, or the Congress's role in carrying out the powers and responsibilities it has defined in the Constitution, or the public's role in evaluating the performance of all three branches and electing members to the two political branches.

The Supreme Court (or the judiciary, or even "government officials" more generally) isn't a special priestly caste to whom the contemplation of certain mysteries is restricted. That would be contrary to the entire concept of government of, by, and for the people.

Re:Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Sena... by bobo1357 on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @03:59PM (#6054358)
Read Article III, Section 1.

"The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court."

Re:Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Sena... by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @04:07PM (#6054397)
That's not what is says. Particularly, that period you put in isn't where the sentence ends, the full sentence is:

"The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."

Further, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is defined in Art. III, Sec. 2: "In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."

The Exceptions Clause is significant.

Re:Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Sena... by bobo1357 on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @04:14PM (#6054440)
The Supreme Court has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and over state court cases involving issues of federal law.
Re:Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Sena... by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @05:28PM (#6054857)
Incorrect. The appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is "confined within such limits as Congress sees fit to describe." The Francis Wright, 105 U.S. 381 (1881), at 386.