Breaking news: Judge rules against warrantless wiretapping
From the AP via WSJ:
Associated Press
August 17, 2006 12:32 p.m.DETROIT -- A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.
"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Judge Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.
The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Judge Taylor to rule.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Rossputin on 08/17/06 at 10:43:55 am . Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. |
Yours truly
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08/18/06 @ 04:20:25 pm
Well, I am happy to be writing this from the Hong Kong Airport, where at least I can feel safe.
They (the left-wing, 60's holdout, mamby pamby, denialists, head-in-the-sand, Bush-haters) have tried to stop us from prosecuting the war on Jihadists (Be clear about that...Terror is a tactic, not an adversary)at every turn.
They wanted to leave Sadam unfettered to develop WMD and be free to plot to use them; they've tried to restrict our ability to imprison bad-actors in Gauntanamo; they've tried to restrict our ability to effectively interrogate terrorists (interrorgate them??; they've tried to restrict our ability to surveil Jihadists and to pre-empt them; they called for Israel to stop the war to eliminate or at least nueter Hezbollah; and they want us to leave Iraq, leaving Jihadists in charge.
They have even blamed the Bush administration for concocting 9/11 and the British liquid explosives plot....
Yikes! When we get hit again, in a big way, guess who will be the first to scream that Bush didn't do enough to protect us.....THEY will!
Can judges be impeached? Or at least re-called, like a bad can of beans?