Aug. 18, 2006 - 14:48 MDT

WAY IT SHOULD BE

Wonder what the administration will do other than Bush blathering about "war" again. In this morning's paper an article by Sarah Karush of the Associated Press tells of the bench's outlook. At least the bench in Detroit. Herewith in full, Bolds and Italics mine:

COURT: ANTI-TERROR PHONE TAPS ILLEGAL

U.S. appeals order to stop listening in without a warrant

DETROIT -- "A federal judge ruled Thrusday that the government's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and odered 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 spearation 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."

"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 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 said 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 while the case m,akes its way through the system."

"She said the ACLU had not yet decided whet her it would oppose such a postponement."

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Makes me wonder, does the government have a bug under my commode ? Seems to boil down that the government maintains that what it says is true and important -- just because they say so and are unwilling to put proof on the table. State Secrets ya know.

Seems to me that by now a method and system to get a warrant could be speedy enough to satisfy NSA.

And thinking about it perhaps because our pres can ignore or reverse most any rule of our country so far . . . . . how much chance that this judge will remain on the bench after that ? The high and mighty seems to have the power to give and take away most anything and often gets pre-emptive about things.

My personal feeling is the Judge is trying to get it back the WAY IT SHOULD BE . . . . . . . . . . . .

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