Government Seeks Dismissal of Spy Suit

The Wired blog 27B Stroke 6 is carrying the news that the US has filed a motion to drop the case the ACLU won in lower court against the government's warrantless wiretapping program. The government's appeal of that ruling will be heard on Wednesday, January 31 in front of the Sixth Circuit court of appeals. The feds argue that the case is now moot because they are now obtaining warrants from the FISA court, and furthermore President Bush did not renew the warrantless program. Turns out there's a Supreme Court precedent saying that if you were doing something illegal, get taken to court, and then stop the illegal activity, you're not off the hook. The feds argue in their petition that this precedent does not apply to them. Here is the government's filing (PDF).

Comments

Re:So lets see if I have this chain of events righ

[nietsch]

So you say that because the republican part of your olichargy holds more than 1 third of the seat (one of them always will in your two party system) the president can order the gouvernment all illegal things he likes, because congress could never impeach him.
So how are your militias going? It is time to feed the tree of freedom, and I nominate every congrescritter that opposes impeaching BabyBush.

If they win

[Hennell]

would this mean that all file sharing would be fine, as long you delete your file sharing software and promise to not do it anymore if they try to prosecute you?