Attorney General Says Wiretap Lawsuit Must Be Thrown Out

Mr Pink Eyes writes with news about comments from US Attorney General Eric Holder, who said a San Francisco lawsuit over warrantless wiretapping should be thrown out, since going forward would compromise "ongoing intelligence activities." From the AP report: "In making the argument, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration's position on the case but insists it came to the decision differently. A civil liberties group criticized the move Friday as a retreat from promises President Barack Obama made as a candidate. Holder's effort to stop the lawsuit marks the first time the administration has tried to invoke the state secrets privilege under a new policy it launched last month designed to make such a legal argument more difficult. ... Holder said US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who is handling the case, was given a classified description of why the case must be dismissed so that the court can 'conduct its own independent assessment of our claim.'"

Comments

Re:So let me get this straight..

[LordKazan]

people listen, and take seriously, his invalid points every single day. apparently you've never met a Dittohead

hint: they gave THEMSELVES that name.

Re:So let me get this straight..

[BitZtream]

Illegal? Thats open to debate, but well beyond my paygrade. I'm going to say that if it isn't, it probably should be.

Immoral? I see absolutely no reason to place a blanket statement like that on it. Of course if they weren't secret would could make an actual determination, but its not immoral on principal, its immoral if used for the wrong reason. There is no proof that in general it has been used for immoral reasons, no more than there is any proof that its being used for the right reasons.

Considering the government makes the laws they can change them to make convictions pretty easy if they wanted to. They'd probably have a hard time dealing with the revolt, but thats another issue.

You are generalizing well beyond the point of having a logical discussion.

I have no problem with warrentless wiretaps if they are used against criminals, no one should.

The problem is, our founders realized how easy that sort of thing turns bad. The only real prevention you have against it is to throw out evidence obtained without permission, so the law enforcement and judicial branches of the government have something to prevent them from using wiretaps in a a bad way..

Warrentless wiretaps aren't inherently evil, its silly to say they are. We just don't allow them because we believe that allowing that would be far more damaging to the nation as a whole and could easily be used to hurt and control innocent people.

We don't deny these sorts of things because 'they are evil', we deny these sorts of things because evil people will take advantage of them.

Get some perspective.