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Congress Tries To Strip Power From Anti-Wiretap Judge
palegray.net writes "Congress is attempting to strip US District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of his power following his ruling against the government regarding immunity for telecoms in the NSA wiretapping case. Walker was appointed to the bench by President Bush, and has attempted to enforce existing prohibitions against warrantless wiretapping. From the Wired article: 'Walker, the chief judge of the Northern District of California, affirmed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the exclusive legal method for conducting surveillance inside the United States against suspected spies and [terrorists]. The Bush Administration argues that Congress's vote to authorize military force against Al Qaeda and the president's inherent war time powers were exceptions to the exclusivity provision.' The article makes the observation that Congress seems to be having difficulties bringing itself to enforce the laws that it has previously passed regarding wiretapping, and seems more interesting in silencing opposing viewpoints."
Update: 07/06 16:15 GMT by SS: As several readers have noted, the vote would only limit Judge Walker with respect to this particular case. His other responsibilities would be unaffected.
You Americans should probably try to e-mail your senator or member of congress regarding this. Mr. Walker seems to be one of the good guys, I'd hate to see him go down.
Sounds like a typical case of "These rules are for other people, not us". Mr Bush seems to like that thought process.
Congress is attempting to strip US District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of his power following his ruling against the government regarding immunity for telecoms in the NSA wiretapping case. Walker
It is misleading to say that he ruled against the government. He represents a branch of the government, an independent judiciary, and he made a decision contrary to that of other branches of government. He has lived up to his role (nigh duty) and provided the checks and balances that keep the government as a whole in check.
Republicans and Democrats have done more to strip America of her civil liberties than terrorists ever could.
Lee Iacocca in his autobiography stated that people are more interested in reading headlines rather than content or Opinion.
Before any of you slashdotters start venting foam from your mouths, let us be clear on content:
1. The Congress is NOT trying to strip THIS judge from power to do anything.
2. The Congress/Senate votes on July 8th to provide immunity to Telecoms who allegedly violated law.
3. If such immunity is provided, then, and only then will this judge lose his power to apply the law to Telecoms on spying.
If the vote stalls, (any senator can bring in a "Hold") the judge can proceed on existing laws and there is absolutely NOTHING the Congress or president can do to stop him, short of impeaching him (which will invite the wrath of even Scalia and probably result in arrest of President).
The title is wrong, misleading and similar to what FOX news or Karl Rove would have done.
Shame on you s'dotters, i thought you were more intelligent and accurate than FOX News.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
How is Bush different than Saddam?
He doesn't feed people feet first into plastic shredders. He doesn't use chemical weapons against citizens of his country. He doesn't have women raped and children tortured in front of their parents. He's going to be out of office via the normal process come next January.
There is a much longer list. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a fan at all. I think he's made numerous blunders and our country is weaker for it. Rampant spending, ill advised military operations that are governed by the State Department more than the Pentagon (if you're going to fight a war, fight it to win). That list goes on and on as well, but to compare him to Saddam is disingenuous at best.
"He doesn't feed people feet first into plastic shredders." - Neither did Saddam, or any of his henchmen. That was just a bit of War propaganda.
"He doesn't use chemical weapons against citizens of his country." - Um.. Yes he does. Mace is a good example. Almost all the vicious weapons, chemical or mechanical, that are used for torture today were first developed in the US.
"He doesn't have women raped and children tortured in front of their parents." As far as I know, you have me there. I don't think he allows parents into Guantanamo. But he does use torture, there and elsewhere on a regular basis. In fact, he probably does arrange for this to happen on some extraordinary renditions....
"He's going to be out of office via the normal process come next January." We hope. He should have been thrown from office for many crimes via the normal process already, but has managed to suppress it so far. At the least he has broken the constitution.
When I started to write this I thought it would be hard to make any kind of comparison between Saddam and Bush, but it turns out that it's quite easy. Of course, a lot of things that were said about Saddam were wartime propaganda and lies - I have little trouble believing that if the two men had each taken up the other's role they would have behaved very similarly. And of course, Saddam has not actually taken over another non-threatening country and stolen all it's raw materials.....
He doesn't feed people feet first into plastic shredders.
Instead, he authorizes war and they're blown up, crushed, finished off by treatable diseases, or flee their homes to live in squalor in refugee camps. He only presided the capture of 80,000 suspected terrorists, and only 150 have officially died in custody.
He doesn't use chemical weapons against citizens of his country.
The same members of his current administration authorized the sale of those weapons knowing full well what they'd be used for.
He doesn't have women raped and children tortured in front of their parents.
The lawyer (John Yoo) in charge of formally defining torture said that crushing a child's testicles or raping an infant shouldn't be illegal when trying to extract information from terrorists. They haven't, to public knowledge, done that yet, but they think they should be able to.
He's going to be out of office via the normal process come next January.
Hopefully he won't start a war with Iran before he's finally removed from power, whether directly or through our client state, Israel.
That list goes on and on as well, but to compare him to Saddam is disingenuous at best.
No. Our government supported Saddam Hussein, with money and weapons, during the worst of his atrocities when his father was vice president. The same group of people oversaw the war in the gulf, and returned for round three to complete the destruction of Iraqi society in order to establish control over the resources of that area.
When virtually the same administration supports a tyrant and then accuses him of being a tyrant as an excuse to decimate an entire country, there's no reason not to make the comparison. Were it not for American support of Saddam in the 80s, the Shah from 1953 to 1979, and our continuing support of Saudi Arabia, there may have been freedom in the middle east long ago.
Saddam simply did our dirty work for us, namely, suppressing the Shia minority and keeping Iran in check and Saudi Arabia less worried about an uprising in their own state. Now we're employing the same tactics in Baghdad for the surge, where one hundred thousand mercenaries, including Sunnis no longer allied with al Qaeda, have been given free reign to "establish order."