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The ruling delivered a blow to the Bush administration’s claims that its surveillance program, which Mr. Bush secretly authorized shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was lawful. Under the program, the National Security Agency monitored Americans’ international e-mail messages and phone calls without court approval, even though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, required warrants.
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[Plaintiff’s attorney] Jon Eisenberg, said Judge Walker’s ruling was an “implicit repudiation of the Bush-Cheney theory of executive power.â€
“Judge Walker is saying that FISA and federal statutes like it are not optional,†Mr. Eisenberg said. “The president, just like any other citizen of the United States, is bound by the law. Obeying Congressional legislation shouldn’t be optional with the president of the U.S.â€
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The ruling is the second time a federal judge has declared the program of wiretapping without warrants to be illegal.
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But Judge [Vaughn R.] Walker limited liability in the case to the government as an institution, rejecting the lawsuit’s effort to hold Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, personally liable.
So, it was illegal, as long argued. Yet nobody will go to jail for it, naturally, because Presidents, particularly George W. Bush, and their men, though theoretically “bound by the law,” as Eisenberg says, are still above the law, apparently.
For you Tea Baggers: The comment section below is open so that you can let us hear your arguments as to why you believe that Barack Obama should be allowed to violate the law and the Constitution in order to read your emails and listen to your phone calls, at any time, and for whatever reason he chooses, without ever receiving court approval, the way you used to argue that Bush was allowed to do.
For you non-Tea Baggers in the reality-based world: We’ll note here that the Judge in this case also, thankfully, rejected the DoJ’s attempt to invoke the so-called “State Secrets Privilege” as “first asserted by the Bush administration and continued under President Obama.”
The SSP is what the Bush Administration had twice used to gag FBI whistelblower Sibel Edmonds for so many years, successfully ensuring that her case would never see the light of day in a court of law, despite her appealing the Administration’s use of the draconian and (previously) rarely-invoked “privilege” all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Can we assume then that the “State Secrets” the Bush Administration was hoping to keep from seeing the light of day in the Edmonds case were even more of a national security threat than exposing the fact that the Government was spying, illegally, on anybody in this country that they wanted to?
I’m so happy to read this. There is at least one judge in America upholding citizens rights. Perhaps this will result in setting matters straight throughout the United States.
To defend Bush now would defeat the purpose of becomming a Teabagger.
Republicans became Teabaggers because they were proven wrong about everything.
Republicans became Teabaggers because they were afraid to fess up to what they did to our country.
Republicans became Teabagges because thousands of American troops died for no reason.
Republicans became Teabaggers because they are cowards of the lowest order.
Vitamine E, water, and roughage…stay present and THINK. Good ole crossword puzzles and scrabble!
I wonder if Teabaggers see the irony in how the US preaches morality to the world, but doesn’t abide by it. In this case, Bush violated the Constitution and Obama refuses to bring the law breakers to account (and he continues the illegal practice).
But when Obama commented on the violations of another government (Indonesia, in this case) he said:
Obama can’t have it both ways, and neither can the Teabaggers and militia terrorists.
————
The above is stolen from Glenn Greenwald.
Wasn’t SURE this was not Brad’s idea of an April Fool’s Day posting. Am allowing myself a tiny glimmer of hope, it being spring & all. Yay?!
This is as explosive as Sibel’s exposure of Marc Grossman. Why is Sibel out of town for this one? Can Mark Klein’s attorneys reopen his case now with precedent? Is this Obama’s way of supporting the case by allowing Judge Vaughn to see classified reasons for supporting warrantless wiretapping? It can’t be let to die. All Americans are being wiretapped, and anyone speaking out is placed under surveillance. This goes to the very basis of freedom of speech!
So glad you could cover this as I didn’t have the time. Of course, if we had real accountability, those who ordered the violations of FISA and statutes banning torture would have long ago been brought before the bar of justice.
Why are you are quoting the “hated”/”dishonest” NY Times who got the “ACORN PIMP HOAX” wrong?
Looks like the NYTimes mis-characterized the decision.
Please Remove Your Shoes is a revealing documentary about Broken Government; The TSA. Please check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Please-Remove-Your-Shoes/106678037093?ref=ts
Paul L. asked:
Because this time they got the story right, courtesy of one of their few smart hiring decision recently by bringing on Charlie Savage.
As to your other reach, courtesy of The Volokh Conspiracy, the technical issue you’ve quoted unskeptically from Orin Kerr is largely dispatched by the bulk of the commenters over there. Here is just one of them that smartly sums up the general theme:
Finally, since you appear to be one of Andrew Breitbart’s Tea Bag Boyz, I’ll ask you to speak for those Tea Baggers I queried in the original post. It is your opinion that Barack Obama may spy on any American he feels like, at any time — via phone taps or reading their emails, etc. — for any reason whatsoever, without receiving approval from anyone, any court, to carry out his search and seizure at any time, as the Bush Administration had argued?
Do I understand you Baggers correctly that you are in favor of such unchecked powers for President Obama?
It seem that you like to use the “technicality” excuse when you do not agree with a court decision.
Like you did with the dismissal of the ACORN lawsuit in Baltimore.
So I and the “teabaggers” are considered to be a suspected terrorists/Foreign agents by the Obama Administration?
From Wiki
Paul L. said:
Are you having trouble keeping your stories straight? The Bush/Obama Administration’s did not lose wiretapping case on a “technicality”. That’s an absurd, and full unsupportable argument.
Second, as to the dismissal of the case against O’Keefe and Giles, there was no finding at all. The case was simply dismissed because plaintiffs didn’t timely serve the defendants. An argument that O’Keefe and Giles didn’t break the law there would be absurd. But, of course, I suspect you know that and don’t care, because it supports your partisan agenda to argue otherwise.
Don’t know. It’s up the Obama Administration. So I’ll presume you don’t mind them deciding if you are or not.
The question was, do you support Barack Obama deciding whether you are, on his own, with no oversight, so that he can then tap any citizens phone or email that he likes, for any reason whatsoever?
You and the Tea Baggers are in favor of that, correct?
The Obama Administration has to prove that the teabaggers fall under FISA.
I would guess that progressives and the would say the Tea party is a Zionist conspiracy and the Obama Administration could use Israel as the “foreign power” to use FISA.
Progressives in the past have use similar crazy legal logic to apply RICO to abortion protesters.
Your statement that “Domestic NSA Wiretapping Program Illegal” is not supported by the decision since the DOJ did not argue about the legality of the program instead used ‘State Secrets Privilege’.
Pointing this was the “technicality”.
Paul L.:
Why won’t you answer the question? Do you support Barack Obama being able to spy on any American citizen he likes without oversight of any sort?
As to your continued obfuscations:
That is nonsense. Setting aside that this is the second court to have determined that Bush’s spying was illegal (the first decision was overturned on appeal, based on lack of standing, but the substantive decision about the illegalities of Bush spying was not spoken to by the appelate court, so was left to stand, essentially), the fact is, by your argument, if I’m charged with murder, use an insanity defense without speaking to whether I murdered or not, and the court finds me guilty, then the court never found I was guilty of murder.
The litigants in Al-Haramain who charged that Bush illegally spied on them were found, by summary judgment, to have been guilty of exactly that. Simply because the Obama DoJ could find to legitimate defense for having illegally spied, and thus chose to use “SSP” as their defense instead, is no “technicality”.
But even guilty parties aren’t guilty in your corner of the world, so out of touch have you become with reality, it would seem.
So do you believe Obama should be able to spy on any American citizen he wants, at any time, without court order or oversight, as Bush argued, or not?
Paul L–
Glenn Greenwald rebutts Orin Kerr’s claim that this ruling did not find the illegal wiretapping illegal. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/01-4
“Kerr is wrong when he says that this ruling does not constitute a decision that the Bush NSA program was illegal — it does exactly that, because the plaintiffs offered evidence and arguments to prove it was illegal and the Obama DOJ (like the Bush DOJ before it) failed to offer anything to the contrary”
A finding/judgement of illegality that doesn’t result in any indictments is hard to get excited about. The rest of the world would be very impressed to see some people go to prison. Otherwise, its just words.
Robert O’Hara at #16 has a point.
The TeaBaggers and Paul L are right on one score: Since nobody is being punished or pursued, clearly this behavior is LEGAL.
If it were illegal, then the Department of Justice would stop it and indict those who did it in the past. Since that will never happen, we can assume that it is legal.
Based on the actions of the Obama DoJ, torture is legal. Outing a CIA spy is legal. Lying America into illegal wars of aggression is legal. Killing innocent civilians in wartime is legal. Stealing from the US Treasury for personal or corporate gain is legal. Railroading a political candidate into prison is legal. Stealing an election is legal. Denying people their right to vote is legal. Refusing to count legally cast votes is legal. Just about ANYTHING is legal.
Simple, but true. Wireless wiretapping is practiced on many U.S. citizens, including Quakers because they support non-violence. That translates into being put on a terrorist watch list. When caught the Feds cannot apologize because that is admission of liability, the only thing presently that holds up in court. Police State anyone?
So, where does this leave us? What happens next? I fear that nothing will happen.