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Judge Rules NSA Wiretapping Unconstitutional
strredwolf writes "CNN is reporting that NSA's warrantless wiretapping program has been ruled unconstitutional. This is the ACLU lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars, and lawyers. From the article: "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.""
It doesn't mean they won't keep doing it anyway.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
One branch of the U.S. government acts in a sane and rational manner, not to mention appropriate regard for the Constitution.
It's such a small article but with all of the talk that has been going on about the "alleged" illegal wiretapping this simple story headline was more then enough to make my jaw drop open in awe.
However, how long will it take before Judge Taylor becomes just another of then "activist" judges?
Bravo, Judge Taylor, Bravo.
That's already the case. Pretty much everyone who has rallied behind Bush and his administration for the advances of executive power that he's pushed for criticized Clinton for the same attempts. They granted the line item veto, only to have Clinton use it once and have it taken away. Bush has used signing statements to accomplish the same thing. Clinton's ties to industry were scrutinized; Bush's are clear, yet it's OK because it shows he supposedly knows what's going on.
Directly related to FISA and the wiretapping, Clinton's administration conducted a few physical searches w/o warrants, which was legal at the time. When it was discovered, and a law was passed saying that a warrant was needed... they stopped.
It's just a case of "When our guys do it, it's OK, but if your guys do it it's not" syndrome. What they really want to have happen is have a law that only takes effect when members of a certain party are elected. So there would be a "Republican Only" law that only works when the president's party is Republican. And so on.
Damn activist judges, legislating from the bench! What's that? There was no legislating involved here? She was just ruling based on the laws that are already on the book? Well, she's still a damn activist judge!
This guy's the limit!
"John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" -- Andrew Jackson's reply to the Supreme Court on the subject of indian removal.
The lesson learned: judges can strike down anything, but unless it's enforced, the decision is moot. Will the NSA stop? No. Will the government ensure they stop? No. What can anyone do? Nothing.
It's an inevitable consequence of a populace that understands football better than politics. The idea that the parties are supposed to work together to support society is not a familiar concept. They think it's about two teams, one of which must be the winning side and one of which must be the losing side. They've picked a side, not realising that politics is not a zero-sum game.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
I think the sad part of this story is that the ALCU are the ones standing up for our rights. Where is the outrage? The problem is Americans are too complacent in their SUV and Mc-Mansion lives to give a F***.
I remember a poll a while back that stated 50% of people surveyed are willing to give up their rights if they thought it would help the war on terror. I am sure that's not what our forefathers had in mind.
Most people just take their freedoms for granted and assume they will always be there. I can imagine the look on their faces when the police show up to randomly search their homes, and they state "Don't you need a warrant for this?" and the police reply "Nope. Not any more!"
Most people in the United States support the wiretapping program.
Most people in the United States supported slavery too.
The public at large cannot always be trusted to support the moral or ethical side of an issue, nor can they be trusted to maintain logic or consistency in their beliefs. I think it was Ben Franklin that said (paraphrasing now), "Being in the majority means that most people agree with you; it does not mean that you are right."
That's why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is intended to be a semi-permanent document that does not change with the "whims of the people". It *can* be changed, and in fact it was changed to outlaw slavery once and for all, but it is intentionally difficult to do. And if the Constitution says that this program is against the law of the land, then that's that. Public support is irrelevant.
What I was a bit surprised to read in this ruling was that the judge said the President of the United States had willfully and knowingly broken the Fourth Amendment. That's an impeachable offense; in fact, pretty much the worst kind of impeachable offense. Now, there are a lot of things that people on the other side of the aisle have said Bush could be impeached for, but this is the first time that I know of that we have a legal ruling by a federal judge that documents an actual offense for which the President could be held legally accountable. This federal judge has basically labeled the President a high criminal in a legally binding decision.
The question is, will anything be done about it? I guess we'll know in November. As we've seen, politics matters a lot more than ethics or legality to the current congress.
First, the lawsuit that was thrown out wasn't "wiretapping" at all. It was data mining -- a transfer of supposedly private records to the government so that they could be sifted for patterns. Not covered by FISA.
Second, in the current case, the privacy issue is entirely secondary. The real concern is: President Bush knowingly broke the law. End of story. (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act describes what steps the government needs to take to wiretap the phones of foreign agents. Those steps include a warrant by the special FISA court. The Administration did not seek those warrants on a large number of wiretaps. FISA also specifies that it is the only law covering such surveillance.) Caught at breaking the law -- a law, by the way, he had signaled his complete satisfaction with, and which, if he had asked, he could easily have had amended -- he brazenly declared his intention to go on breaking the law.
A few years back, a hyperventilating minority of the political leaders in this country screamed bloody murder and tried to oust a President for perjuring himself in a civil suit concerning a matter from long before his Presidency. It was, they told us, a matter of high principle: The President must obey the law. He must respect the judicial process. He must not be an oathbreaker, since he swears an oath to uphold the Consititution and faithfully execute the laws of the land.
Now, that group of leaders is shockingly silent -- indeed, worse, vocal in their defense -- when their party's President knowingly and intentionally violated an actual law and thus knowingly violates his oath of office. Even for Washington, the hypocrisy here is rank.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach