Federal Judge Kicks Bush Butt

Federal Court Strikes Down NSA Warrantless Surveillance Program

Today’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor agreed with the ACLU that the NSA program violates Americans’ rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, and runs counter to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) passed by Congress. Judge Taylor also rejected the government’s argument that the case could not proceed because of state secrets, saying that facts about NSA wiretapping have already been conceded by the government.

Thoughts:

• This is not over until the right-wing packed United States Supreme Court hears the final appeal.
• Judge Taylor leaves no doubt that the Congress abdicated its responsibility in terms of checks and balances. The failure of the Congress to act and the acquiescing of traitors like Arlen Specter (Rep-PA) is as criminal as Bush's illegal actions.
• The full opinion is so elementary and basic to our freedoms that an elementary school student understands it.
• None of the right-wing defenders of the Bush Dictatorship are arguing the merits.  They talk in terms of national security compromised by the decision.  They are attacking Judge Taylor because she is Afro-American, a woman, and was appointed by Jimmy Carter.
• The conclusion of the decision is profound:

U.S. v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967):Id. at 264.

Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution. As Justice Warren wrote in Youngstown:

Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of...those liberties . . . which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.

Comments

[dicta]

Some of the right wing attack is pure pettiness. I heard some of it this morning from Ann Althouse on WPR and note it at my blog which is here: http://dictaspot.blogspot.com.

Glenn Greenwald and Jack Balkin have some good commentary about the decision and the right wing idiocy up at their sites.

[Mark Twarog]

None of the right-wing defenders of the Bush Dictatorship are arguing the merits. They talk in terms of national security compromised by the decision. They are attacking Judge Taylor because she is Afro-American, a woman, and was appointed by Jimmy Carter.

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What right-wing defenders have attacked Judge Taylor because she is Afro-American and a woman?