Text 21994, 99 rader
Skriven 2006-08-18 04:36:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Ruling
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Another liberal activist judge that wa judge shopped by he ACLU.  This 
will get over turned but we need more of these so that the public can 
see what the ACLU and the activist judiciary are up to.


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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060817/D8JIEQC00.html

Judge Nixes Warrantless Surveillance
 
 
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Aug 17, 6:26 PM (ET)

By SARAH KARUSH

DETROIT (AP) - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's 
warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered an 
immediate end to it.

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, as well as the 
separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this 
matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-
page opinion.

The Justice Department said it is appealing the ruling.

"We're going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this 
program to continue," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at a news 
conference in Washington.

Gonzales maintained that the program is legal and useful.

""We've had numerous statements by leaders of the intelligence community 
about the effectiveness of the program in protecting America," he said.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration 
"couldn't disagree more with this ruling."

"The program is carefully administered and only targets international 
phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the 
parties on the call is a suspected al-Qaida or affiliated terrorist," 
Snow said.

The ruling won't take immediate effect so Taylor can hear a Justice 
request for a stay pending its appeal. A hearing on the motion was set 
for Sept. 7, Snow said.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of 
journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it 
difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas 
contacts are likely targets of the program, monitoring phone calls and e-
mails between people in the U.S. and people in other countries when a 
link to terrorism is suspected.

The government argued that the program is well within the president's 
authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush 
administration already had publicly revealed enough information about 
the program for Taylor to rule.

"At its core, today's ruling addresses the abuse of presidential power 
and reaffirms the system of checks and balances that's necessary to our 
democracy," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told reporters after 
the ruling.

He called the opinion "another nail in the coffin in the Bush 
administration's legal strategy in the war on terror."

While siding with the ACLU on the surveillance issue, Taylor dismissed a 
separate claim by the group over NSA data-mining of phone records. She 
said that not enough had been publicly revealed about that program to 
support the claim and that further litigation would jeopardize state 
secrets.

The lawsuit alleged that the NSA "uses artificial intelligence aids to 
search for keywords and analyze patterns in millions of communications 
at any given time." Lawsuits have been filed over data-mining against 
phone companies, accusing them of improperly turning over records to the 
NSA.

However, the data-mining was only a small part of the Detroit suit, said 
Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director and the lead attorney on 
the case.

Beeson predicted the government would appeal the wiretapping ruling and 
request that the order to halt the program be postponed while the case 
makes its way through the system. She said the ACLU had not yet decided 
whether it would oppose such a postponement. 

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