"Charles O'Rourke" -net wrote in message
news:lUghe.13514$iU.12603@lakeread05...
The judicial branch has the final say in both civil and criminal matters.
You could appeal your case all the way up to the Supreme Court, if you
wanted to pay for the lawyers all the way up. (There's no guarantee that
any of the courts would hear your case, but even their decision to hear
your case or not is a form of judicial review.)

Yup.

What concerns me most about these threads is that so many pilots are willing
to believe--on the basis of mere rumors and urban legends--that we actually
live under a totalitarian system in which a minor administrative authority
routinely and openly operates without even nominal regard for due process,
and is so powerful as to be invulnerable to the judiciary! And these pilots
are willing to acquiesce to this (fortunately imaginary) totalitarianism
without mounting significant resistance. Their willingness serves as an
unwitting invitation to actually bring about such a state of affairs.

In other walks of life, of course, the Patriot Act, and US practices of
disappearance and torture, pose far more dire threats to due process and
other Constitutional and international human-rights guarantees. But at least
there *is* resistance being mounted--politically, and through litigation by
groups such as the ACLU. And there is no doubt that the judiciary has the
final say in these matters, although they have limited their intervention so
far.

--Gary