Originally Posted by
Superguy
Regardless of what you think of Phil's case, can someone tell me how a person can get to a court of law without taking a stand in the "streets" first? You have to be harmed by a law in order to file a complaint in court - it's how our system works. If you go thru and comply, you're hard pressed to make a case of harm because nothing happened, even if their action was illegal.
I don't see how if you don't stand up in the streets first and get smacked down how you can challenge a law's validity outside of getting states' or federal legislative bodies to make the change.
Exactly. If you want to challenge the constitutionality of a law, you pretty much have to get arrested for violating it first. Otherwise, you have no standing, and any challenge you attempt to bring to the law will be summarily dismissed before a single argument is heard in court. It's the same reason that, until recently, it's been nearly impossible to challenge the no-fly list: Since you had no clue who was actually on the list, nobody had standing. Also note how quickly the government has worked to remove the "No-Fly" status of the plaintiffs in that case in order to make the suit moot.
People intentionally getting arrested to challenge the constitutionality of a law isn't exactly a rare thing. It happened all the time, for example, during the Civil Rights Era.