The Courts Are At It Again: Nutter Judges Thinking They Know Better
This drives me positively nuts. Judge Anna Taylor, from Detroit, incorrectly ruled that the NSA surveillance program is unconstitutional:
HT: The vacationing John Hinderacker from PowerLine
A federal judge in Detroit on Thursday ordered the Bush administration to halt the National Security Agency's program of domestic eavesdropping, saying it violated the U.S. Constitution.
The ruling was a setback for the Bush administration, which has defended the program as an essential tool in its war on terrorism.
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said the controversial practice of warrantless wiretapping known as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" violated free speech rights, protections against unreasonable searches and the constitutional check on the power of the presidency.
The program has been widely criticized by civil rights activists and raised concern among lawmakers, including some in President George W. Bush's own Republican Party, who say the president may have overstepped his powers by authorizing it.
The government had asked for the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union to be thrown out, arguing that any court action on the case would jeopardize secrets in the war on terrorism.
Bush authorized the NSA program after the September 11 attacks on the United States, and it became public last year.
The program allows the government to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without obtaining a warrant, if in pursuit of al Qaeda.
Democrats and some Republicans say the program could overstep Bush's authority as commander in chief and appears to violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA requires warrants for individual eavesdropping on suspects inside the United States.
No offense to Judge Taylor, but she's a moron. Not only is she disregarding precedent in hand (that being In re: Sealed Case) but she is directly challenging the powers of the president during a time of war; a point that the Constitution grants certain extra powers to the president. In Sealed Case the FISA Court of Review stated the following:
The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power. The question before us is the reverse, does FISA amplify the President’s power by providing a mechanism that at least approaches a classic warrant and which therefore supports the government’s contention that FISA searches are constitutionally reasonable.
Many legal scholars and pundits have referred to this (the NSA program) case as a Fourth Amendment case. That would be true if this were not a foreign intelligence issue; The FISA Court of Review knew what the president's powers were, especially concerning foreign intelligence. This is just scha a case. FISA applies to US citizens not foreign agents. That is what this program was designed to do by "listening" to international phone calls. If those phone calls come to or emanate from the US, they can be surveilled. End of story.
National security falls on the president's shoulders, via Article II, Sections 1 and 2. It states that the powers of the executive are "vested" in one president, and that said president will be the commander-in-chief of US military forces, respectively. FISA can't trump this. If the president has a way to track and identify our enemies on our soil, or abroad, he has a wide latitude to get them, using means and methods that would be questionable, at best, against US citizens minus a warrant. No warrant is needed to to what the NSA program is doing.
Judge Taylor has just stepped in a big pile of you-know-what; so much so that the Sixth Circuit Court (which is where the appeal is probably going to go) will overturn her nutter decision. And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there was a polite rebuke in their opinion to Judge Taylor for overstepping her jurisdiction, i.e., challenging the powers of a wartime president.
Publius II
UPDATE: A stay is in place, and this will be reviewed by the Sixth Circuit Cout of Appeals. (7:07 p.m., AZ Time)
This drives me positively nuts. Judge Anna Taylor, from Detroit, incorrectly ruled that the NSA surveillance program is unconstitutional:
HT: The vacationing John Hinderacker from PowerLine
A federal judge in Detroit on Thursday ordered the Bush administration to halt the National Security Agency's program of domestic eavesdropping, saying it violated the U.S. Constitution.
The ruling was a setback for the Bush administration, which has defended the program as an essential tool in its war on terrorism.
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said the controversial practice of warrantless wiretapping known as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" violated free speech rights, protections against unreasonable searches and the constitutional check on the power of the presidency.
The program has been widely criticized by civil rights activists and raised concern among lawmakers, including some in President George W. Bush's own Republican Party, who say the president may have overstepped his powers by authorizing it.
The government had asked for the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union to be thrown out, arguing that any court action on the case would jeopardize secrets in the war on terrorism.
Bush authorized the NSA program after the September 11 attacks on the United States, and it became public last year.
The program allows the government to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without obtaining a warrant, if in pursuit of al Qaeda.
Democrats and some Republicans say the program could overstep Bush's authority as commander in chief and appears to violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA requires warrants for individual eavesdropping on suspects inside the United States.
No offense to Judge Taylor, but she's a moron. Not only is she disregarding precedent in hand (that being In re: Sealed Case) but she is directly challenging the powers of the president during a time of war; a point that the Constitution grants certain extra powers to the president. In Sealed Case the FISA Court of Review stated the following:
The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power. The question before us is the reverse, does FISA amplify the President’s power by providing a mechanism that at least approaches a classic warrant and which therefore supports the government’s contention that FISA searches are constitutionally reasonable.
Many legal scholars and pundits have referred to this (the NSA program) case as a Fourth Amendment case. That would be true if this were not a foreign intelligence issue; The FISA Court of Review knew what the president's powers were, especially concerning foreign intelligence. This is just scha a case. FISA applies to US citizens not foreign agents. That is what this program was designed to do by "listening" to international phone calls. If those phone calls come to or emanate from the US, they can be surveilled. End of story.
National security falls on the president's shoulders, via Article II, Sections 1 and 2. It states that the powers of the executive are "vested" in one president, and that said president will be the commander-in-chief of US military forces, respectively. FISA can't trump this. If the president has a way to track and identify our enemies on our soil, or abroad, he has a wide latitude to get them, using means and methods that would be questionable, at best, against US citizens minus a warrant. No warrant is needed to to what the NSA program is doing.
Judge Taylor has just stepped in a big pile of you-know-what; so much so that the Sixth Circuit Court (which is where the appeal is probably going to go) will overturn her nutter decision. And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there was a polite rebuke in their opinion to Judge Taylor for overstepping her jurisdiction, i.e., challenging the powers of a wartime president.
Publius II
UPDATE: A stay is in place, and this will be reviewed by the Sixth Circuit Cout of Appeals. (7:07 p.m., AZ Time)
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 5:06 PM
1 Comments:
NSA opened its doors in November 1952-building on the legacy of its predecessor-the Armed Forces Security Agency.
The judge needs to research the history of the NSA. NSA has always done this. Anyone on the Intelligence Committe knows this.
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