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TechnoratiUS Supreme Court Weighs National Security, Whale Welfare
WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court began hearing arguments Wednesday into whether national security trumps the well-being of whales off the coast of California.
![[US Supreme Court building. (AFP Image)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/supremecourt1009.jpg "supremecourt1009.jpg")
At issue is whether President
George W. Bush has the constitutional power to exempt the US Navy from
environmental laws that curb the use of long-range sonar in the North
Pacific Ocean that could bring harm to whales.
The navy uses just such sonar off California -- operating on a frequency that can disorient whales and provoke their beaching or death -- to look out for hostile submarines lurking beneath the Pacific.
Driving the case is the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a Washington-based environmental action group that claims 1.2 million members.
"This case is about achieving environmental protection while maintaining our important national security standards," Jeffrey Flocken, Washington director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said in an NRDC statement.
"It does not need to be an either-or scenario when it comes to ensuring our waters are protected and our marine wildlife is healthy."
The case has its origins in a US federal court ruling in January this year that ordered the US Navy to take safety precautions on the California coast inhabited by five species of endangered whales.
Saying that sonar caused, with "near certainty," irreparable danger to the environment, it told the US Navy to reduce the sonar frequency level and to turn it off altogether if a marine mammal is detected within two kilometres (three miles).
Bush personally responded a few days later by signing an exemption order, arguing that sonar was vital for military preparedness exercises that are in the "paramount interest of the United States".
Environmentalist pursued the case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which in February upheld the federal court's decision -- prompting the Bush administration to petition the Supreme Court.
Addressing the nine Supreme Court justices Wednesday, government lawyer Gregory Carre said the court of appeal's reasoning was "fundamentally flawed," not least because it failed to take the public interest into account.
He acknowledged that a preliminary navy study found that sonar could disorient 170,000 marine mammals, and leave 8,000 whales temporarily deaf. But he defended the sonar level used by the navy as being well below the danger level for marine life.
For its part, the NRDC recognized the need to strike a balance between protecting whales and detecting a hostile submarine. "A simple district judge making a determination on that? A defense matter?" its lawyer told the court.
The environmentalists nevertheless argued that, despite months of out-of-court negotiations, the navy refuses to make any concessions vis-a-vis the protection of marine life.
"NRDC's goal is to encourage the military to use sonar responsibly, not to stop its use altogether," the group said on its website.
5 Comments so far
Show All"COMANDO October 9th, 2008 6:02 pm
That was just what i was looking for someone that cares about peace THANK YOU"
BE WARY of people who talk about peace [before] speaking of justice!
"herbalist October 9th, 2008 3:08 pm
How about instituting a policy that makes the US more friendly to it's neighbours and talking to them about their concerns FIRST, instead of just assuming that our neighbours are wasting their resources on secret submarines?
Or how about getting rid of the "War on terror" policy that's been in place for years and start trusting and talking again?
They know what happens when you ASS-U-ME.""
AS PER ABOVE-stated, always keep justice in mind when thinking or speaking of peace, wanting it, and herbalist provides a fine enough example of what I'm talking about.
Furthermore, and what was my initial reason for writing this post, at all, the damn f*cking picture with the article; it's better that the pic. be included, but I despise the scene. It looks quasi-satanic!
After all, we know it's a superstructure component of the satanically insane, diabolical U.S. govt, the hellish superpower that hellishly applies its hidden ruling elites' hellishly insane ... hells upon humanity, being the big hammer of the hidden, masked, ... ruling elites of this hellbent bestiality that is called the U.S. govt; the bureaucratic and military parts of it anyway. Otoh, too many of its relentlessly supportive voters and various profiteers, including internationally (Israeli leadership definitely is one of the topmost profiteers, not benefactors, for there's absoutely no benefit for anyone in all of this, but profit, shit, Hell knows the "usefulness" of tantalizing humans who are greedy with opportunities to PROFIT).
Okay, so we know all of that, and yada yada, but then we additionally see a picture of a bunch of jack-ass lemmings marching in single-line manner up into a vomit area of bestiality. I mean, like shit dude, I really don't like such scenes, and only worse is this when it's not in some dreamed nightmare, instead being in [reality]! I have this particularity about reality; I like it to be SANE!
After all, the idiots in the picture aren't walking into your friendly neighbourhood public library, right! What satanic ritual are they going to; regardless of whether they're informed of the evil they're supporting, or not. Oops, that was, semantically speaking, supposed to end with a question mark, but ... didn't.
Do I now get to earn a PhD for my funny (?) ways of expressing what I perceive of ... [reality]? Not yet eh? Not yet, eh. Oh, well, maybe some future occasion ....
Oh, I just double-checked and the caption for the photo. says 'U.S. Supreme Court', that hellish bestiality; the good members, and there are and have been good members, either being shoved aside or else bounced, given the "sort of" hidden rulers of the so-called court are all hell-bound fiends. F.e., when they hellishly saw to appointing Bush and Cheney to the presidency; and in a way to make the real president seem to be only vp. Such "gaming", say.
No wonder, the impression I quickly or immediately got from the picture! The only right way to march into the US Supreme Court is with big destruction hammer. Destroy, and then rebuild; it's sometimes necessary to start over again, and from the very start, while this sometimes requires some demolition work, first.
Leadership comes from the top , TO bad thats the way it is right now
How about instituting a policy that makes the US more friendly to it's neighbours and talking to them about their concerns FIRST, instead of just assuming that our neighbours are wasting their resources on secret submarines?
Or how about getting rid of the "War on terror" policy that's been in place for years and start trusting and talking again?
They know what happens when you ASS-U-ME.
That was just what i was looking for someone that cares about peace THANK YOU
Tony
Yea!The US huminoids top the rest of the world!!!As an american I find this totally disgusting and this is not leadership but assholeship. Tony