NSA eavesdropping program "unconstitutional" -- More 2 (Updated and bumped) Contributed by Bill Faith
Continued from
NSA Decision: Lots Of Emotion, Little Reasoning Ed Morrissey
The ruling yesterday to forbid the President to continue his warrantless surveillance of international communications involving one party within the US seems likely to , not so much for its conclusion but for its emotional and mostly weightless reasoning. The Washington Post notes that legal scholars found themselves underwhelmed by the legal justifications of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, and after reading the decision myself a couple of times, I'm glad to see that my reaction matched theirs:
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Judicial opinions usually state the competing arguments in a lawsuit, which read like press releases combined with legal references, and then provide a solid line of reasoning towards the eventual decision. Taylor's opinion seems to just continue the assertions into the analysis, which is filled with scolding rhetoric but not much else. She comes across as so anxious to be the first to strike down the program that she marches right past the standing of the plaintiffs, which seems questionable, to agreement with every point raised by their attorneys.
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*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 11:21
Wiretap ruling knocked out- That's gonna leave a mark Uncle Jimbo
I took some flak yesterday for my piece arguing the wiretap position was bunk. I am particularly unqualified to comment on matters of law, especially national security and intelligence law.
Bryan Cunningham served in senior positions in the CIA and as a federal prosecutor under President Clinton, and as deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.
The Honorable Anna Diggs-Taylor probably means well. The lone judge in American history to order a president to halt in wartime a foreign-intelligence-collection program that has undoubtedly saved lives probably sympathizes with the journalists, and others, who are suing to stop the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) in which NSA intercepts foreign-U.S. terrorist communications. She probably feels in her heart the program is wrong, and undoubtedly hears the footsteps of the federal judicial panel moving towards taking this case away from her and consolidating it with others.
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Much will be said about this opinion in the coming days. I’ll start with this: I wouldn’t accept this utterly unsupported, constitutionally and logically bankrupt collection of musings from a first-year law student, much less a new lawyer at my firm. Why not? Herewith, a start at a very long list of what’s wrong with Judge Taylor’s opinion.